The 2016 melting season

[Jim Hunt]

Just posted a new topic on "Spring 2016" with related links on last fall's freeze

Thanks for the heads up. FYI see also:

Importance of waves in the Arctic

and:

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=148096

[pearscot]

Wow, I just can't quite wrap my head around all that's going on in the Arctic this year.  Despite the recent 'lull' (if you want to call it that) it seems like this year is, for the time being, just on another level.  What I'm most unsure about is if the entire pack will essentially break free from the coast and be able to spin or move around in the gyre.  Additionally, what happens when there is open water in places that have not seen it in a substantial amount of time.

[ktonine]

Lastly, take a look at what's going on at the pole.  I remember seeing images like this in July and August before on here, but in May?! I'm sure it's happened before, but the rate of loss and heating this year continues to surprise me. Enjoy:

Ummm .... that image *is* from last August.  August 6th, 2015 per the timestamp.

[pearscot]

Lastly, take a look at what's going on at the pole.  I remember seeing images like this in July and August before on here, but in May?! I'm sure it's happened before, but the rate of loss and heating this year continues to surprise me. Enjoy:

Ummm .... that image *is* from last August.  August 6th, 2015 per the timestamp.

LOL honest mistake on my part, I didn't notice that. I was nervous for a second there that the ice was that melted at the pole.

I edited my original post accordingly.

[Rob Dekker]

I agree, Rob, but it's the wind that caused those polynyas in the first place, and winds cause water to open faster than melting (at this time of year).

You are right, Neven.
A-team's latest animation also shows that indeed the winds play a significant role in the further opening of the Beaufort open water. The ice is certainly on the move, along the coast, towards the Chukchi, and it is not all caused by melting as I feared.
Just curious why that ice does not seem to increase the Chukchi ice extent. Is it just piling up ?

[Frivolousz21]

Skies should significantly clear out over the Pacific side the next few days with major ridging taking over.

[oren]

May 25th differences in sea ice concentration.

To avoid alignment jitter, it works better to take whole-screen screenshots even though they are 'too big', layer them up, and only then crop to size. There is a lot of dead wood on these graphics so when that is pruned, the layers can be scaled up to a larger size that still runs on the forum (700x700 or under, less than 5 MB).

What strikes me when looking at this wonderful comparison animation is that 2016 is unique not just in the Beaufort, but also in the Barents and southern Greenland Sea. It's as if this year global warming has taken the north Atlantic with a vengeance. In the Greenland Sea historically low extent meant low Fram export. This year we have normal export but low extent as the exported ice melts much sooner.

[DavidR]

What strikes me when looking at this wonderful comparison animation is that 2016 is unique not just in the Beaufort, but also in the Barents and southern Greenland Sea. It's as if this year global warming has taken the north Atlantic with a vengeance. In the Greenland Sea historically low extent meant low Fram export. This year we have normal export but low extent as the exported ice melts much sooner.

What  strikes me about Greenland this year is that  there is virtually no ice on the east coast south of the 70th parallel.  Last year  there was at  least 30km of ice all the way along this coast down to the southern tip.  This suggests that  the North Atlantic is a lot warmer than last year.

[Rob Dekker]

Hi everyone,

finally decided to register here, woop, woop!

I don't know if it was already mentioned, but the Slater Probabilistic Ice Extent (SPIE) seems to be up and running for this year:

http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/SEAICE/

Thanks Egal, and welcome to the forum !
And thanks for pointing us to Slater's probabilistic ice extent estimate. It was missed.
It seems that Slater had his estimate for 2016 up for a day, but now its gone again.
Seems he is still working on it...

[Neven]

You are right, Neven.
A-team's latest animation also shows that indeed the winds play a significant role in the further opening of the Beaufort open water. The ice is certainly on the move, along the coast, towards the Chukchi, and it is not all caused by melting as I feared.
Just curious why that ice does not seem to increase the Chukchi ice extent. Is it just piling up ?

Some of that ice melts out, of course. It's not all wind, and the melting share gets larger every day. As for the Chukchi: it's melting there too, enough to offset incoming ice from the Beaufort (however much it is).

[werther]

On MODIS is visible that the Lena river is finally breaking into it’s delta and the Laptev Sea. The Southeastern branch is in full swing, unloading into Buor-Khaya Gulf. The cauliflower-structure, characterizing the delta, is unfolding:

[MikeAinOz]

Slater Probabilistic Ice Extent seems to be running fine now http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/SEAICE/
worth a look

[Jim Hunt]

Meanwhile, over at Idiot Central

You will no doubt be pleased to learn that your critical comment at unReal Science is now visible to the world at large, along with a couple from yours truly. I've taken the liberty of quoting you briefly in my elucidatory article on the egregious antics of an apparently dope smoking Colorado whack job:

Arctic Fraud Continues Unabated

Would you like to play "spot the difference" with Tony, Caleb and I?

[Neven]

It's a question of days now. Maybe open water all the way from the NWP to Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean before the month is out?

[Buddy]

It's a question of days now. Maybe open water all the way from the NWP to Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean before the month is out?

How does this compare to the last 5 years or so....?

[crandles]

It's a question of days now. Maybe open water all the way from the NWP to Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean before the month is out?

How does this compare to the last 5 years or so....?

on blog, Neven wrote

Either way, unless the wind starts blowing very strongly from the North (due to a big, persistent cyclone), the coast will be largely ice-free before June 10th, which is one month earlier than any other year in the 2005-2016 timeframe.

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/05/beaufort-final-update.html?cid=6a0133f03a1e37970b01bb0906d128970d#comment-6a0133f03a1e37970b01bb0906d128970d

[F.Tnioli]

It's a question of days now. Maybe open water all the way from the NWP to Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean before the month is out?

If "open water" is <50% concentration, and the map is made of large cells, then sure, may be. Otherwise, i think not. Gonna give remaining ice "cubes" extra couple days to sail around merrily melting in all directions, right?..

P.S. How shallow most of those open (and soon-to-be-open) waters are? Perhaps it's time to quickly build some resorts out there? Pristine beaches and tender warm water of _Arctic_ ocean, eh.

[Neven]

I've just published ASI 2016 update 1: both sides. 'Enjoy'. 

[jdallen]

Meanwhile, speaking to the Atlantic side, we have water temps running to the high 20's to nearly 30C just off the US Eastern Seaboard.

Storms like the one about to brew up there will present a serious threat to the ice because of the energy they will drag out of the tropics with them. 

Our winter "cyclone cannon" that kept things so warm on the Atlantic side may continue, now bringing moisture and well above freezing temperatures with it.

[Lord M Vader]

Speaking about cyclones, it seems like we might have a TC later this weekend according to NOAA. 90% chance of development.

[A-Team]

We have not been making much use of the transparency and palette options provided by Nasa's WorldView site. Below I experimented with various combinations of 'sea ice brightness' 89V and 89H over conventional true color optical until the color was drawn out in the open area of the Beaufort.

This is called segmentation in the image processing world; there are a great many ways to approach it. The literal scientific meaning of sensors has been very altered yet if the analyst knows some fiducial areas the colors can still be usefully interpreted. No information has actually been lost, the transformation is invertible using the link below.

There is still a slice of un-imaged pie over the area in some of the layers for May 27th at the time of this post. May 19th had a unrepairable satellite acquisition glitch filled in below by borrowing the missing wedge from the 18th.

In working with the WorldView site, after setting everything up but before embarking on the time series capture, be sure to open the 'share this map' chain icon in the upper right and capture the set-up as a tinyurl. That way if you inadvertently disturb the display (like I did-- the Opera browser is hypersensitive to mouse movements) or need to return a week later to add more dates or roll the animation forward (which I would like to do but can't now), it is easy to return to exactly where you need to be. Below is the long version of the url that shows how the arrangement is captured:

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,Land_Mask,AMSR2_Sea_Ice_Brightness_Temp_6km_89H(opacity=0.35,min=115,max=182,squash),AMSR2_Sea_Ice_Brightness_Temp_6km_89V(opacity=0.79,min=114,max=184,squash),MODIS_Terra_Sea_Ice(hidden),MODIS_Terra_Brightness_Temp_Band31_Day(hidden),Graticule(hidden),arctic_graticule&t=2016-05-27&v=-1738339.9027208947,822529.1341481712,-328291.90272089466,1734913.1341481712

http://go.nasa.gov/1WQWU0j short version

[NeilT]

At the risk of sticking my neck out to have my head chopped off, there are a lot of similarities I see with other seasons.  Large ice loss the year before, warm winter leading to very early melt.  Followed by a stall in June and a race to catch up and finish in July and August.  Never quite making it.

I just trawled through the AMRS-e archives, the SSMIS archive and did a quick comparison with May 26th.

For each of the 4 years I checked, I had a look at May 26th, June 26th, July 26th and August 26th.

The years were, 2006, 2007, 2011 and 2012 respectively.

I know I've said it before and it does not fit with what we are watching right now, but I very clearly remember the expectations of something very, very special in 2006.  I also remember the long drawn out pause and the sudden late push to melt.  In 2007 my expectations were low and massively exceeded.

In 2011 I was much more sceptical and was, therefore, unsurprised by the pause.  I was, however, quite stunned in 2012.

So, by June 26th we'll know.  Is it a precursor year to a disaster or is it the main event?  Who remembers 2005?  The press "The arctic is an island"?  "A new island found"?  "Shock ice loss"?  The scene was set and 2006 had expectations.

Then we have to remember that 2007 was a step change in the ice balance of the Arctic.  Leaving the 2011/12 event to be even more spectacular.  Again 2012 was a step change and the volume started out very low this year and went lower.

I simply refuse to get excited about 2016 until it gives me something to be excited about that, in relative terms (there's a LOT less ice out there this year), it gives me something to shout about.  That would be around mid July unless this frenetic pace continues.

[oren]

I've just published ASI 2016 update 1: both sides. 'Enjoy'. 

Thanks for your (as always) excellent way of presenting this stuff.

[Andreas T]

I wanted to get a better grasp on how much of the shifting ice edge in Kara sea is due to movement and how much is actual melt. The attached images of 22. 26. and 27. May are of the south western corner and by marking recognizeable floes it becomes clear that the ice area between theese floes and the ice edge is getting smaller.

[Neven]

Thanks, oren!

Very nice, Andreas. Is that piece of coast in the lower right corner of your images Novaya Zemlya? Just trying to get my bearings.

As I wrote in the ASI update: extent also has started to drop in the Kara Sea (I expect it to follow the 2012 and 2015 paths, given the state of the ice south of Novaya Zemlya).

[Lord M Vader]

Neven: what do you think about CAA and ESS this year? I think it will be a tough mission to clear the whole Northwest Passage this year.

[Andreas T]

Yes Neven, it is the bit of Novaya Semlya which curves to the east. Link to worldview segment: http://go.nasa.gov/25ngIu2

[Neven]

Neven: what do you think about CAA and ESS this year? I think it will be a tough mission to clear the whole Northwest Passage this year.

The Northern Sea Route is going to open 100%, only question is when.

I haven't looked at the NWP. It depends on the weather (no kidding, Neven), but also on how thick the ice has gotten there after it was open last year. I don't know if a lot of thick ice north of the CAA blew in, but things haven't been particularly cold during winter:



So, if I would have to guess, I'd say the NWP is going to be open (central route too). Why do you think it will be a tough mission?

---

ECMWF 12Z forecast is going Arctic Dipole on our ass (sorry, had to think of Pulp Fiction):

[Lord M Vader]

Somewhat off-topic, but FWIW: latest CFSv2 is foreseeing a more or less very cold autumn as well as early winter months in the Russian Arctic (October-November then). http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/CFSv2_body.html

I seriously suspect that forecast will fail epic.....

[Csnavywx]

Somewhat off-topic, but FWIW: latest CFSv2 is foreseeing a more or less very cold autumn as well as early winter months in the Russian Arctic (October-November then). http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/CFSv2_body.html

I seriously suspect that forecast will fail epic.....

There's some initialization issues with the CFSv2 that are causing that to happen.

[jdallen]

We have not been making much use of the transparency and palette options provided by Nasa's WorldView site. Below I experimented with various combinations of 'sea ice brightness' 89VH over conventional optical until the color was drawn out in the open area of the Beaufort.

<snippage>

Greet animation, A-Team as always.

Interesting to see, if you follow the movement at the edge of the Beaufort, you can see ice disintegrating as it gets swept across warmer water.  I expect that is a preview of coming events.

That's a lot of open warm water already close to -1C and heating up more.  Even as it is, that's enough heat to strip off 2+CM/day from pack ice, and if gets a but higher - 0C or more - it could tear through even the remaining 2M thick ice in less than 6 weeks.

The wind when moving in the right direction can shift the surface water multiple KM per day. When that happens, the ice edge should retreat accordingly.

[Frivolousz21]

It should be noted that 2016 has fallen behind 2015 in arctic basin surface melt by a decent margin.  And probably 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

2007 didn't go nuts until the end of the FIRST week of June.

[Frivolousz21]

With that being said the ESS is already seeing surface melt and the makings of an epic beating are underway.

The models show  relentless offshore flow mostly sunny conditions, very warm mid level temps, way way above normal 2m temps/advection.

[Rob Dekker]

Slater Probabilistic Ice Extent seems to be running fine now http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/SEAICE/
worth a look

Thanks Mike. Yes, Slater's site is back up an running.
And the results are quite intimidating.

For starter, he projects 7.42 M km^2 by July 15. This is while 2012 at that date was at about 8 M km^2. So he projects that 2016 NOT show any significant 'stall' and will maintain its lead over 2012 (by some 600 k km^2) at least until halfway July.

But it gets worse. Remember that his model is based on ice concentration. Sort of like extrapolating how melting ponds will develop over time. And so far concentration has been average, and is just now reducing over the remaining ice pack now that area is dropping faster than extent (see Wipneus's assessment on this).

So it would be interesting to see how Slaters projections will change over the next week.
Maybe that steep downward trend at July 15 in his model is telling of how bad 2016 may turn out to be....

[jdallen]

Thanks Mike. Yes, Slater's site is back up an running.
And the results are quite intimidating.

For starter, he projects 7.42 M km^2 by July 15. This is while 2012 at that date was at about 8 M km^2. So he projects that 2016 NOT show any significant 'stall' and will maintain its lead over 2012 (by some 600 k km^2) at least until halfway July.

But it gets worse. Remember that his model is based on ice concentration. Sort of like extrapolating how melting ponds will develop over time. And so far concentration has been average, and is just now reducing over the remaining ice pack now that area is dropping faster than extent (see Wipneus's assessment on this).

I think the problem is that that unlike previous years, the problem is *everywhere*.  It seems that there is no part of the Arctic that isn't in bad shape or subject to massively out of average temperatures.  I think we are seeing the natural outcome of 2015's winter conditioning (or lack thereof).

[Neven]

There's some initialization issues with the CFSv2 that are causing that to happen.

That's exactly what someone involved with the model told me at an EGU poster session last year. I think it's safe to ignore this model's output wrt sea ice.

[abbottisgone]

It should be noted that 2016 has fallen behind 2015 in arctic basin surface melt by a decent margin.  And probably 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

2007 didn't go nuts until the end of the FIRST week of June.

Saying all this: do we actually know why 2012 went nuts?

[Frivolousz21]

It should be noted that 2016 has fallen behind 2015 in arctic basin surface melt by a decent margin.  And probably 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

2007 didn't go nuts until the end of the FIRST week of June.

Saying all this: do we know why 2012 went nuts?

Yes.

Late May and early June featured a massive CAA,GIS,CAB Ridge.

Huge WAA and Sun.

No other ready year had one that early and warm

[Lord M Vader]

Interesting to see when the "real" melt onset starts and if the high pressure dominated weather will continue in the Arctic through June. Ensemble models hint about a possible turn to more cyclonic weather. Compare for ex ECMWF ensemble for June 3 and June 6. GFS ensemble also shows somewhat cooler conditions and a more cyclonic pattern.

Of course, this is sn ensemble and forecasts for the Arctic is quite tricky and especially in the longer frame. For now and the next few days we should see some really bad weather for the ice.

Neven: I don't think the CAA will see good melt weather this year which should make it harder to melt out the weak ice there in the NWP.

[Neven]

Saying all this: do we actually know why 2012 went nuts?

Yes.

Late May and early June featured a massive CAA,GIS,CAB Ridge.

Huge WAA and Sun.

No other ready year had one that early and warm

ASI 2012 update 3: international daily data day

ASI 2012 update 4: converging and diverging

ASI 2012 update 5: when graphs agree

And so on...

I've been writing ASI updates since 2011. Reading through them gives you a good idea of events and their chronology.  If you click 'more' under Archives in the ASIB left panel and scroll down to Categories, you can find the ASI updates for any specific year.

[Neven]

Neven: I don't think the CAA will see good melt weather this year which should make it harder to melt out the weak ice there in the NWP.

We will inevitably see weather somewhere that won't be good for melting (we will, right?  ), so if it happens there, then yes, the NWP central route could remain closed this year.

[LRC1962]

NOAA Calls for Near-Average 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season; Other Groups Go Bigger

Penn State predicts an exceptionally above-average Atlantic hurricane season: 19 named storms
Here's a forecast worth paying attention to: the April 25 forecast made using a statistical model by Penn State's Michael Mann and alumnus Michael Kozar called for an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season with 19 named storms (expected range: 14 to 24). Their prediction was made using statistics of how past hurricane seasons have behaved in response to sea surface temperatures (SSTs), the El Niño/La Niña oscillation, the NAO, and other factors. The statistical model assumed that in 2016 the late-April +0.88°C departure of temperature from average in the Main Development Region (MDR) for hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic would persist throughout hurricane season, a moderate La Niña would form this fall, and the NAO would be near average. If no La Niña forms, their model predicts reduced activity: 16 named storms.

The PSU team has been making Atlantic hurricane season forecasts since 2007, and these predictions have done well, except for in 2012, when an expected El Niño did not materialize:

2007 prediction: 15 named storms, Actual: 15
2009 prediction: 12 named storms, Actual: 9
2010 prediction: 23 named storms, Actual: 19
2011 prediction: 16 named storms, Actual: 19
2012 prediction: 11 named storms, Actual: 19
2013 prediction: 16 named storms, Actual: 14
2014 prediction: 9 named storms, Actual: 8
2015 prediction: 7 named storms, Actual: 11

Why could this be important? If the tendency for storms started in the Atlantic tropics continue to end up in the Arctic, and the cold blob remains strong, then we possibly could see a very active conveyor belt sending strong storms into the Arctic.
On top of that if things set up right we could also see one or more GAC set up shop.

[Laurent]

We will have to watch what is going on, on this side also. (Franz Joseph islands)
http://go.nasa.gov/22rOxYR

[Jim Hunt]

Much more on the Sea Ice Prediction Network call for contributions for the 2016 Sea Ice Outlook June report over on the blog.

Whilst perusing the SIPN web site I also discovered that a buoy was dropped on to a MYI floe in the Beaufort Gyre in April:

http://justinbeckers.com/autonomous-stations/buoy%e2%80%90300234062442620/

[Andreas T]

nice animation, Laurent, it makes it easy to track floes moving back and forth in the lee of the islands as open water forms. Apart from some recent infill of thin ice very little "disappears" at this time of the year. The thing to watch is how soon the thicker bits will now get smaller and fewer.

Jim, do you think these "sea surface temperatures " are credible? These buoys always report oddly high temperatures when the sun shines on them. They have their temperature sensors housed in a much more basic way than the air temp sensors on IMB buoys and Obuoys, the large diurnal fluctuations show that they can't be water temperatures even if it wasn't among the ice.

[Lord M Vader]

Neven: concur with you thatthe North East Passage will open up. Feels like it will open up every year from now and onward.

Given the weather forecasts, we should see an opening in the Laptev Sea next week.

[AmbiValent]

I'm not so sure about the main NWP (Perry Channel) remaining closed. I think the ice that's there in the winter melts out completely, and if it remains closed it's because of thicker ice coming in from the north. That thicker ice took a heavy beating last year, so Perry Channel could remain open.

[Jim Hunt]

A slightly clearer view of the Lena delta today from Aqua:

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

Compare and contrast with May 30th 2015.

[BornFromTheVoid]

So far this year, according to the NSIDC daily values, may has lost about 13.12% of the April 30th extent. This is already the 3rd largest % loss for May on record, with 2010 having the largest at 14.99%.
If we can average a loss of 61.2k/day for the remainder of the month, we'll just about beat the 2010 %.

[Comradez]

Just now I was toying with the nullschool settings, and I noticed it had relative humidity.  So I toggled that on, and I noticed some interesting patterns. 



1.  The current slowline around Hudson Bay and in Siberia is very clearly demarcated by areas in the arctic with high relative humidity. 
2.  There is high relative humidity in the Chukchi, ESS, and Kara Sea. 

Basically, I wonder if we can use relative humidity as a proxy measure for ongoing snow and ice melt.  The idea would be, melting snow would release a lot of evaporation and humidity into the local atmosphere.  And this high humidity, when coupled with above-freezing temps this time of year at those melt fronts, would tend to accentuate the melt further. 

In other words, this might be a way of predicting where snow and ice is going to see big losses in the near future.  Any thoughts?