The 2016 melting season

[F.Tnioli]

...
I noticed this too and am puzzled by it. The Ob is ice free not far from the delta I would say, just over 50km have ice on it. The way this has been progressing north ahead of the snow line moving north might indicate that it is driven by water from further south so it is quite possible that water has been flowing under the ice. ...

There is water flow under the ice, yes. Refer to Discharge Characteristics and Changes over the Ob River Watershed in Siberia, p. 602, 2nd graph on the left: mean Ob April discharge ~= 2000 m3/s, mean Ob May discharge ~= 5000 m3/s, the latter being highest mean monthly discharge of all months.

[Neven]

00z GFS and 12z ECMWF are complete disasters if they materialize. I think Friv, Neven and others agree about that!

A disaster perhaps, but indirectly. It's all about the build-up of melting momentum right now. Okay, maybe not 'all', but a lot. I expect extent decline to remain average (or slightly slower) for a while.

Forecast looks bad for Siberian snow cover, which hasn't been as anomalously low as on the North American side.

[Frivolousz21]

While ridging is incredibly persistent.  The air mass is very stagnant and very little WAA looks to be incorporated into the arctic basin.


Also MODIS shows a ton of fog. 

So it looks like it could be a persistent dirty cool ridge.

[seaicesailor]

While ridging is incredibly persistent.  The air mass is very stagnant and very little WAA looks to be incorporated into the arctic basin.


Also MODIS shows a ton of fog. 

So it looks like it could be a persistent dirty cool ridge.

If this dull central high happened in July as in 2014 it would protect central ice and cease melting.
Right now it does too, but at this early time, in CAB nothing can be as white as its own snow. However at the periphery it seems sun will be melting land snow and storing heat in open water.
In May 2015 people were fixated by cold 80N+ temps when warm air was hitting the Beaufort sea ice.
No WAA but very warm all around. We'll see.

[DoomInTheUK]

...
Forecast looks bad for Siberian snow cover, which hasn't been as anomalously low as on the North American side.

Oh great, so one of the few areas that hasn't been too bad for the ice, is set for a pounding. June is going to be an interesting watch!

[F.Tnioli]

Oh great, so one of the few areas that hasn't been too bad for the ice, is set for a pounding. June is going to be an interesting watch!

Yep, it's going to. Speaking of which, here's few quotes from the current state of the forecast for Dickson island:

... fast ice breaking near the polar station Dickson Island is forecasted at 8 July, i.e. about 10 days earlier than average multiyear norm (norm is 18 July).

... Complete water area clearance of ice near polar station Dickson Island is forecasted about 15 July, i.e. approximately 12 days earlier than normal (norm is 27 July).

I think, some chances are those will end up underestimations - could happen even earlier.

[Andreas T]

...
There is water flow under the ice, yes. Refer to Discharge Characteristics and Changes over the Ob River Watershed in Siberia, p. 602, 2nd graph on the left: mean Ob April discharge ~= 2000 m3/s, mean Ob May discharge ~= 5000 m3/s, the latter being highest mean monthly discharge of all months.

If you read the text, it say this discharge (a misleading word I agree ) is not at the mouth of the river but far upstream at Novosibirsk on the upper Ob.
Modis shows dark water surface right up to the delta today http://go.nasa.gov/1Rknd6X

[themgt]

I thought this was interesting, NSIDC (w/ prelim F18 data). Tracking outside 2SD curve

[F.Tnioli]

...
If you read the text, it say this discharge (a misleading word I agree ) is not at the mouth of the river but far upstream at Novosibirsk on the upper Ob.
Modis shows dark water surface right up to the delta today http://go.nasa.gov/1Rknd6X

I read the text. If you think with your brain, then i say you should realize that 5000 m3/s of upstream water has to go somewhere, it can't disappear into thin air or all sip into the soil, can it. The only way it can go is to the mouth of the river, and since we don't see that water above the ice, - it can only flow under it. You may also note Ob has "discharge" all 12 months of a year. Even when it's all frozen all the way from the mouth of the river up to Novosibirsk - and even way further south.

P.S. Now, Neven says to be short and on-topic, but tell me, how else could i clarify? Sigh...

[Sigmetnow]

Barrow, Alaska:
Arctic set for record-breaking melt this summer

The record heat that is baking Alaska is poised to smash a host of climate records in 2016, including the earliest snowmelt date at NOAA’s Barrow Observatory, the northernmost point in the nation.

Staff at the observatory reported snowmelt occurred May 13, the earliest snowmelt date in 73 years of record-keeping, beating the previous mark set in 2002 by a full 10 days.

The early melting follows a record-setting winter that saw temperatures average more than 11 degrees above normal for the 49th State, shattering the previous record set in 2015.  At 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Barrow is usually one of the last places in the United States to lose snow cover.

http://www.noaa.gov/arctic-set-for-record-breaking-melt

[Neven]

P.S. Now, Neven says to be short and on-topic, but tell me, how else could i clarify? Sigh...

This is fine. If Andreas now comes back with more, it's time you gentlemen go look for the river discharge topic (or create it if it doesn't exist).

[6roucho]

Far out, that's quite a thing, for NOAA to publish.

[F.Tnioli]

P.S. Now, Neven says to be short and on-topic, but tell me, how else could i clarify? Sigh...

This is fine. If Andreas now comes back with more, it's time you gentlemen go look for the river discharge topic (or create it if it doesn't exist).

Sir yes sir! 

[Ninebelowzero]

I thought this was interesting, NSIDC (w/ prelim F18 data). Tracking outside 2SD curve

This year it's been hovering just outside for quite a period.

Grouping each decade of results and plotting the mean  for each set of 10 might be more useful for a dynamically changing system.

[A-Team]

Three versions of the Beaufort Gyre for May 1st to May 22nd are shown below. The most interesting feature is the westward lurch about midway, followed by gyre resumption. This suggests changes in wind direction dominate ice movement rather than intrinsic water circulation which cannot change on so short a time scale due to momentum conservation.

The top animation approaches the area of open water (or thin ice) through a thresholding approach. On the one shown, the cut-off was 217 on a grayscale of 255. By counting the number of blue pixels in each frame while stepping through cut-off values, the resulting plot would remove some of the arbitrariness of the thresholding value to give an idea of seasonal trend in opening leads, melt and compaction relative to other years.

To see May dates on the three animations, simply download and re-open. Day of month displays as the file names of the individual frames. To change the speed of the animation (in gimp), enter a new frame delay while saving and over-ride using the checkbox. The speed is currently set at 120 ms with a 330 ms pause at the terminal frame. Embedding dates within the images would have over-written data.

It is a royal nuisance to align today's date beyond 2014-2016 because of WorldView's change in projection to 'Greenland down". This takes more than a 45º ccw rotation to fix; note the wrong land mask is applied to earlier years. The change-over was on 06 Jun 13.

[F.Tnioli]

...
Grouping each decade of results and plotting the mean  for each set of 10 might be more useful for a dynamically changing system.

Well, don't even need to "plot" the mean if to compare this year to the starting decade of satellite record of ASI:


'cause we're out of even ~3SD most of this year in to compare this way. In NSIDC (and many other) terms, this year is very special, yes.

Three versions of the Beaufort Gyre for May 1st to May 22nd are shown below. ...

Thanks! Good work, those. Could be even better with dates on each frame, if possible to have them automated somehow. The moment i've seen very 1st of them, single thought surfaced instantly: "too much space, too little ice". How thin most of that is in terms of _solid_ ice, i wonder. Not counting near-zero water-filled partially-solid pieces, that is. I bet it's very little.

[Lord M Vader]

Looking at the models, while they might continue having a "dirty" high pressure, the most ominous sign is the eventual set up of "ADA" - Arctic Dipole Anomly. The ensemble signal from GFS is most pronounced to set up an ADA. ECMWF ensemble not as clear but we'll see in the next days.

If so, we'll see a hella of ice transport trough Fram Strait. And all that old ice being close to Fram...

Btw, if the high pressure is dirty as Friv called it maybe we should style it "Mr Hog"? 

//LMV

[F.Tnioli]

... By counting the number of blue pixels in each frame while stepping through cut-off values, the resulting plot would remove some of the arbitrariness of the thresholding value to give an idea of seasonal trend in opening leads, melt and compaction relative to other years.
...

An idea? I'd rather say, a guess, at best. Melt process changes (not linearly) forced by several different things changing themselves, and i doubt melt process can be "approximated" this way. "Quality" of ice, internal ice temperature late winter, water column, etc. But yep, can be a _good_ guess, this one. Better than most, at least!

[werther]

I see. But a bit of stabilizing extent numbers doesn't mediate all seasons' numbers. ECMWF forecasts days of general set-ups that parallel those of the June '12 cliff...

[Lord M Vader]

Three big questions are imminent:

1) Will we see a strong ADA set up (Arctic Dipole anomaly)?

2) When will the really big warm air intrusion into the Arctic basin come?

3) In just how bad shape is the ice in the CAB?

//LMV

[werther]

Lord M Vader, hi,

1)   ECMWF does forecast ADA-like set-ups for next 10 days
(they’re not as pronounced as  ’12 though, albeit in a very different background situation..)

2)   Your question features something that has never happened before. At least, according to the DMI +80dgN graph. Expect the consequences from the first general above mean graph though. Very smooth, spread out and in the end, not good…

3)   Pretty bad, in some places broken up into smaller rhomboids by broader leads than ’12. But a couple of clear days are needed to make a proper assessment.

[werther]

FWIW, skin surface temps are comparable to '12. But generally higher in the Kara Sea, baffin Bay and the Lincoln Sea. Even in some CAA Channels, GoBoothia and NW hudson Bay. Should start to pay off in extent once weather gears up.

[Csnavywx]

Yep, similar in temps to 2012 right now, although the first half of this month was warmer. The winter was also much warmer than 2011-2012, leading to considerably thinner ice.

The 12Z ECMWF and EPS look better for the Beaufort and CAA after d4 but considerably worse just about everywhere else. Widespread above freezing temperatures and sunshine continue and rapidly push all the way across most of the CAB and Russian side. Probably going to set up a LOT of melt ponding by the end of the month.

[seaicesailor]

Yes, the prediction in the 5th day from now is gross for the Eurasian side, (start of dipole that LMV hints?) but I have gotten the impression these scenarios always soften when time comes. Am I wrong that there is this deviation tendency of models this time of the year?

[Csnavywx]

They've been pretty damn good this year. The operational (deterministic) GFS still has a bit of a warm bias for 2m temps at longer ranges, but the ensemble GFS generally does better there. The GEFS, EPS and CFSv2 2-week forecast go nuclear towards the end of the month with the dipole. It's still a ways out, but if that's even close, it's going to be a slaughterfest given the way May has gone so far.

[Buddy]

Yes, the prediction in the 5th day from now is gross for the Eurasian side, (start of dipole that LMV hints?) but I have gotten the impression these scenarios always soften when time comes.

The beginning of the plunge will start end of this month to the first week of June......

[werther]

First glance at MODIS today...continuing SE winds drive the ice away from Barrow. Looks like soon the two large polynia's will team up.

[oren]

Three versions of the Beaufort Gyre for May 1st to May 22nd are shown below. The most interesting feature is the westward lurch about midway, followed by gyre resumption. This suggests changes in wind direction dominate ice movement rather than intrinsic water circulation which cannot change on so short a time scale due to momentum conservation.

The top animation approaches the area of open water (or thin ice) through a thresholding approach. On the one shown, the cut-off was 217 on a grayscale of 255. By counting the number of blue pixels in each frame while stepping through cut-off values, the resulting plot would remove some of the arbitrariness of the thresholding value to give an idea of seasonal trend in opening leads, melt and compaction relative to other years.

It is a royal nuisance to align today's date beyond 2014-2016 because of WorldView's change in projection to 'Greenland down". This takes more than a 45º ccw rotation to fix; note the wrong land mask is applied to earlier years. The change-over was on 06 Jun 13.

The third animation shows the floes very clearly. Amazing what graphics can do.
Many of the huge floes can be seen breaking off pieces on their edges when watched closely. Not a great sign for ice longevity.

[Rob Dekker]

I agree, oren.
Great animation, A-team ! Thank you !

Seems to me that the ice floes at the edge are breaking up and melting away quickly in that wide-open water area in the Beaufort that has been warming up so nicely under the bright clear skies.

Shows what happens if you "stir the pot".

[F.Tnioli]

... The GEFS, EPS and CFSv2 2-week forecast go nuclear towards the end of the month with the dipole. It's still a ways out, but if that's even close, it's going to be a slaughterfest given the way May has gone so far.

If slaughterfest happens "if that's even close", then i wonder how one would call the situation if it'll end up "even a bit worse than predicted nuclear". I mean, what term would fit it, then. Would "collapse" do? I guess so. One of those days (and years), - i guess exactly the thing gonna happen, eh.

[plinius]

Nice animations for the Beaufort! By the way, I suppose everybody noticed how the flows at the mouth of Amundsen Gulf are moving in the opposite direction of the gyre?

[A-Team]

To see May dates on the three animations in #1513, just download and re-open. Day of month displays as the file names of the individual frames. To change the speed of the animation (in gimp), enter a new frame delay while saving and over-ride using the checkbox. The speed is currently set at 120 ms with a 330 ms pause at the terminal frame. Embedding dates over-writes imagery data.

F.Tnoli asks if thresholding 1st animation could provide a metric for open water / slush / frazil. Yes and no, the measure is not positive definite (new pixels can fail to accrue) though the triangle inequality and symmetry are ok but this is easily remedied. However it is the overall function space metrizability that is the issue here (thresholding is fixed at one value, 217, out of 255 grayscale possibilities). Area under the thresholding curve could serve but it does not capture onset variability (ie lumps ice classification). So this just provides an intuitive display that is never going to replace synergistic multispectral products. But those too struggle to capture the many aspects of ice quality.

notice the flows at the mouth of Amundsen Gulf are moving in the opposite direction of the gyre?

Indeed the small pieces of ice seem to be circling aimlessly. Oddly Hycom is showing surges out of both Amundsen Gulf and M'Clure Strait earlier in the month but those ceased on May 8th. Very little ice loss has come off Amundsen since.

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif (date range is unstable)

The second animation tracks a distinctive floe in the central Arctic Ocean outside the Beaufort Gyre. This region has some jitter but is not rotating; there may be some confusion above with the Transpolar Drift (towards the Fram) which as the name suggests is bulk translation rather than rotation. Cloudy frames have been discarded. The overall context of the floe is shown in locator map (2nd image); it is also indicated by a small black box in the Hycom time series.

[F.Tnioli]

... this just provides an intuitive display ...

a.k.a. "a guess", yes.

[seaicesailor]

Nice animations for the Beaufort! By the way, I suppose everybody noticed how the flows at the mouth of Amundsen Gulf are moving in the opposite direction of the gyre?

a cavity reverse flow like schematic? I think I saw this happening before.

[JimboOmega]

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif (date range is unstable)

Not a direct response but I've been watching the Barrow Webcam and this seems to confirm it - why is thick ice so persistent near Barrow?  At the north point and points just east there's a region of particularly thick and persistent ice.  Is it because it all gets piled up on that coast?  Meanwhile both east and west the coast is open.

[Peter Ellis]

It's landfast ice rather than drift ice, and is often (not always) protected by grounded ridges. It's not particularly thick though.
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_breakup
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_sealevel

[Laurent]

Not easy to find the limits of the ice between a broken ice and an other still safe.
(for may 24th) the limit is where the ice is broken in less than 50 km piece.(around)

[BornFromTheVoid]

An interesting period of weather coming up.

A shallow high pressure looks like taking control over the Arctic, but with relatively cool air in place, potential for melt doesn't look very strong.

ECM T72







The GFS shows most of the Arctic ocean still below 0C




However, as we move into the weekend, the high pressure strengthens and despite upper air values still being just a little above average overall, surface temps above 0C become widespread across the Arctic.









By early next week, things are more uncertain, but both the GFS and ECM predict a split between colder air over the Canadian side of the Arctic with milder air along the Eurasian side, and high pressure still in control with temperatures frequently climbing above 0C in the clear skies.










With this in mind, I don't expect to see any massive extent drops over the next week, with us moving back to within about 300k of the next lowest year. However, I think that there could be some big area losses still as surface melt begins to play more of a role.
Moreover, I think if we can sustain the high pressure into June and begin to pull warmer air into the Arctic then a big surface melt event could take hold. This may be the last preconditioning element required to provide 2016 with all it needs for a truly massive summer melt and another record smashing minimum.

[werther]

Thanks BFTV,

That's about what I've been guessing since May 10th. With ice depleted in the far periphery, extent numbers are getting more in line with former years.
At the moment, the Arctic Basin isn't warmer than same time during '12. Even though the DMI +80dgN graph still has '16 in the lead over all former years.

That last indicator is one of the reasons there's no doubt extent losses will pick up again as soon as the weather set-up favours extensive surface melt. Indeed it looks like that can happen next week.
Anyway, in the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay and the Kara, small losses will continue, like today's 40K drop.

[JimboOmega]

An interesting period of weather coming up.

(.. snip...)

That looks ridiculous to me.  No significantly sub-zero temperatures in the Northern hemisphere except for Greenland and the Himalayas?  20's (C) on the north slope?

What I see in that picture is the ocean/ice system absorbing a ton of heat (which is how it's so differently temperatured than the land).

Granted it's a week out but the NWS predicts nothing nearly so warm for Barrow  (Sunday high of like... 3 C)

[Watching_from_Canberra]

Not a direct response but I've been watching the Barrow Webcam and this seems to confirm it - why is thick ice so persistent near Barrow?  At the north point and points just east there's a region of particularly thick and persistent ice.  Is it because it all gets piled up on that coast?  Meanwhile both east and west the coast is open.

There was a brief period of a day or two a few weeks back when the sea visible from the webcam cleared.  Then the currents must have changed and, yes, it piled back in.  The webcam page doesn't seem to have a daily archive but if you scroll through the first 2 weeks of May on Worldview, you can see the ice retreating and then it crashes back in like a wave on the 13th.

Edit:
Apparently there is an archive of the webcam.  Open sea visible in this pic:
http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu/webcam-uaf-barrow-seaice-images/2016_05_12t18_55_00+00_00

8 hours later:
http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu/webcam-uaf-barrow-seaice-images/2016_05_13t02_55_00+00_00

[Michael Hauber]

I don't think there is enough heat to do more than moisten the top of the ice and start albedo effects going, except around the edges.  More important is wind, and for the next few days the wind slacken off.  But current GFS at day 7 has quite a fierce blow between the strenthening high and a solid trough towards Europe.  Could open up the Laptev region fairly quickly, a region which so far this season has been rather protected.

Also current patterns seem to be coldest towards Hudson and Baffin.  So while the central Arctic basin may continue to be prepped for melt, the drop in extent may be slower.  But usually when I make short term guesses about extent stats based on peripheral seas I get it wrong....

[Frivolousz21]

The euro starts June with epically bad weather

[BornFromTheVoid]

The way the ECM builds a strong -ve NAO into the start of June, pulling warm air up through Canada into the CA is eerily similar to early June 2012.

The 8-10 height anomaly map shows a strong signal for high pressure over Greenland in early June.



These charts, especially the ECM, look quite similar to the first week of June 2012.

[Frivolousz21]

Epic.

Just epic

[abbottisgone]

.. Lucky it's not June yet 

[JayW]

I once again plotted the skin surface temperatures for the years 2007, 2012, 2015, and 2016.  I'll let others draw their own conclusions.     I used a 3 day mean, ending on May 22 (last date available)

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/

[abbottisgone]

I once again plotted the skin surface temperatures for the years 2007, 2012, 2015, and 2016.  I'll let others draw their own conclusions.     I used a 3 day mean, ending on May 22 (last date available)

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/

interesting ,... Luckily 2012 looks slightly worse but only just!

[JayW]

I once again plotted the skin surface temperatures for the years 2007, 2012, 2015, and 2016.  I'll let others draw their own conclusions.     I used a 3 day mean, ending on May 22 (last date available)

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/

interesting ,... Luckily 2012 looks slightly worse but only just!

Maybe, maybe not.

2016 minus 2012

[meddoc]

Anyone thinking 2012 has been the absolutely worst, may be dropping their jaws this summer.
Given just the preconditioning last summer & especially this winter and all the unprecedently high, relentless dmi temp anomalies things are set up for possible worst case scenario.
One, that has none regard whatsoever for U.S. elections, individual future carreer plans etc...