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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2450 on: June 20, 2016, 10:43:17 PM »
F.Tnioli wrote "I think you underestimate the power of Arctic insolation in June and July."  Interesting, given I wrote nothing about July!  Two of 15 years melting "massively" more ice in June than this year's June doesn't particularly challenge what I wrote.  This doesn't mean I haven't under-appreciated "the power of Arctic insolation in June".  I agree that the next PIOMAS data release will tell.  I do wonder if the extra open water in May will compensate for the less-than-ideal-for-melting weather in June, as far as heat absorption in the Arctic goes.
I'll try to clarify it for you.

You wrote enough about June for me to suspect that you underestimate the cooling effect produced by larger-than-usual cloud cover in Arctic this June. This can only happen if you also underestimate the sheer power of insolation in compare to other melt factors of Arctic ocean's sea ice (warm water currents, warm air, rain, river runoff, etc). And if you do it for June, then i guess you'd also do it for July. So i mentioned both. Sorry if it was unnesessary, but i just hoped to remind by mentioning July that 1st half of July has nearly the same insolation as the end of June. Didn't expect it'd cause you to ask about it, but you do, so here you go.

Next, it's not just two years. If you'd look to the graph's notes, you'll see that there is a line for 2004...2013 _average_. And you'll see June 2016 line falls much slower than that average. And i hope you do know that 2001...2003 and 2014...2015 did not bring nothing which could shift that average line so much as to change our conclusion here. Which was, is and remains to be quite simple: according to DMI, volume loss this June (so far) is less than average, and very much so. Objecting to this is pointless. You will have much better luck pointing out how bad (wrong, incorrect, broken - pick your term) DMI volume graphs / data are; many have done so in the past, and not without reason.

From past experience, i find that PIOMASS and DMI volume data usually correlate in their dynamics rather well, despite the usual difference in absolute number. By this, i mean that IMHO it's very likely that PIOMASS will also report lower-than-average June when its June report will be published.

And as for your last doubt - no, it won't compensate. In reality, i doubt anyone could tell you for sure whether "lots of open water in May" in fact helps to melt more ice later during the melt season - or on the opposite, _prevents_ some ice from melting during later parts of the season. See, lots of extra open sea during May means that lots of extra water evaporated from its surface. Some of that vapour goes up and forms clouds, and Arctic upper athmosphere tends to stay in Arctic, vortex and all. And now, surprise-surprise, - we see very cloudy June. Coincedence? I doubt. There is definite negative feedback here. Of course, there are also positive feedbacks, too - some quite obvious, like lots of extra heat stored in Arctic waters as a result of May record low cover. But who can exactly quantify and find what's the end result - which feedbacks caused by "lots open water this May" are stronger? Who could calculate exact sum of positive ones and negative ones? I'm pretty sure noone can. And guesses may (and will) vary.

Which is why this forum remains useful. "One mind is good, but two minds is better" goes my people's proverb.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2016, 10:49:06 PM by F.Tnioli »
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2451 on: June 20, 2016, 10:56:49 PM »
F.Tinoli: I saw the DMI graph, and the rather cold and cloudy weather is now starting to show up in the statistics. Don't be surprised if we end up with a volume on pair with 2014 if the current weather conditions continues for quite a while!

It's quite interesting, we are currently lowest on rcord wrt SIE but way after 2012 and 2015.

And today, the DMI graph show a big dip with below normal temps in the high Arctic (+80oN).

Now, let's see what our GAC of 2016 will do to the ice!
Looking at CCI, the forecast over the next 3-4 days also suggest fairly wide spread rain, variously from the cyclone we are following, and other systems bringing massive inputs of moisture into the Chukchi and across the Kara/Laptev.

Depending on volume, that may replace a modest fraction of the insolation screened by cloud cover, and will most certainly reduce albedo over the areas affected.
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werther

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2452 on: June 20, 2016, 10:59:02 PM »
To get an idea where this is going, I've been comparing tile r03c03 (Ellesmere/Greenland quadrant against the Pole) to '12. I have some copies dating from day 160-161 for '12.
I have to say the look during the last few days wasn't encouraging. The warmth advection from the S over Lincoln Sea has turned 100K km2 into 'one big melt pool'. Winds ripped the pack like never before.
But the part belonging to what I've come to see as 'safe pack', last year still about 1.5 Mkm2, isn't as badly deconstructed as it was in '12. At least, on r03c03.
Individual floes remain a tad bigger, leads with rubble a little less intertwined and smaller.

Still, it looks bad. And looking at r04c03/r04c04, roughly on the line Pr. Patrick Island-Laptev Sea, I'm not convinced '16 is much better conditioned than same time '12.

F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2453 on: June 20, 2016, 11:15:05 PM »
F.Tinoli: I saw the DMI graph, and the rather cold and cloudy weather is now starting to show up in the statistics. Don't be surprised if we end up with a volume on pair with 2014 if the current weather conditions continues for quite a while!

It's quite interesting, we are currently lowest on rcord wrt SIE but way after 2012 and 2015.

And today, the DMI graph show a big dip with below normal temps in the high Arctic (+80oN).

Now, let's see what our GAC of 2016 will do to the ice!
Do you mean September volume similar to 2014, or just June loss? If the former - the melt season is long, and there is so much heat around, that even with such a June i'd be VERY surprised if September 2016 volume would be on par with 2014's. If the latter - yep, true. But there is IMHO enough heat around and enough time to have the season pick up the pace and end up on par even with 2012. If it can be THAT SLOW June, then it can definitely also be "unprecedentally fast" August, for example. Right?

Daily dips of DMI are quite... noisy thing, i'd say. Their models are somewhat trembly that way, at times.

P.S. And if by GAC 2016 you mean that low pressure thing which seems to form soon - well, then what you'll call much bigger, warmer and intense C which could well form some 2 motnhs later into the season, give or take few weeks? As 2012 demonstrated, those things do most damage when the ice is most thin and weak. So... How about "HAC of 2016" for this brewing one? Where "H" stands for "Hasty". This way, we'd at least have a way to distinct between the June/July one and later one (if the latter would happen, these days it's quite probable with all the warmth around). Also, sounds choppy. Perhaps it'll be choppy, too. Breaking fields, you know, like an axe - into big enough but still numerous pieces.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2016, 11:20:56 PM by F.Tnioli »
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NeilT

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2454 on: June 20, 2016, 11:21:29 PM »
It's going to make interesting watching for me.  The drop is no big surprise...

GAC's didn't exist then so this is, again, another interesting season to watch.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2455 on: June 21, 2016, 02:06:59 AM »

Well, not typical for the last few years.

The large lead north of the CAA is very clear yesterday and is not seen on the other images. But what triggered the "separated from the Western Hemisphere" statement is, I believe, the cracking that starts at the north coast of Ellesmere Island and continues more or less all the way to the Fram Strait.

Indeed, the lead is more than a simple fracture event, it displays significant lateral slip East of Greenland, edge collapse with rapid expansion above and East of Ellesmere, and appears now to have produced a complete (albeit narrow) detachment of the ice pack from the western hemisphere. 

previous days' images show that the portions obscured by clouds in the image below are also separated from the southern land masses.
Three miles wide at the largest gap. It was amazing watching it as it developed on worldview.
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Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2456 on: June 21, 2016, 04:13:34 AM »
There goes the rest of Amundsen gulf

http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu/search?utf8=✓&search%5Bsensors%5D%5B3%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B16%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B1%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B15%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B17%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B3%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B18%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B10%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B11%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B9%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B8%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B12%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B13%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B14%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B6%5D=1&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B5%5D=1&search%5Bstart%5D=&search%5Bend%5D=&commit=Search

Thanks Jay !
Incidentally, the ice there in Amundsen Gulf cracked at the same place in 2012, but just 2 days earlier (on June 17) than 2016 :



In 2012 all that ice was flushed out quite rapidly into the Beaufort, because of the eastern winds at that time. This time, with winds from the North prevailing, it will probably take a bit more time.
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Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2457 on: June 21, 2016, 04:39:42 AM »

Michael, where did you find these 2012 MODIS 3-6-7 images ?

June 10 2012  Initial onset of widespread melt for the Arctic.  Some orange ice still visible in the cloud covered section towards the Atlantic.
June 21 2012 Low pressure swirl dominating the Arctic.  Zooming suggests red visible in gaps between the cloud arms.  Possibly frozen surface near the center of the low.
July 9 2012  Next major high pressure system reveals deep red and strong melting.  Zooming and turning of 3-6-7 reveals shocking area of low concentration ice from Beaufort to Laptev.

June 19 2016  One of the better views of the ice recently.  Some solid red around the edges, and between North Pole and Greenland.  Seems to be large areas of orange for much of the rest of the central Arctic.
June 20 2016  Some unnatural striping of red and orange through Beaufort.  Could different slices of the Arctic imaged at different times of day by satellite be causing this?  Could comparisons be compromised due to this effect?

I did not know that WorldView also stores the MODIS 3-6-7 images. Thank you !

And yes, looking at these images, it appears that there was quite a bit more melting going on (especially in the CAB) in 2012 around this time.
Here is June 21, 2012 :



However, melting of the top surface (melting ponds or just more water) typically results in reduced ice concentration. And that does not seem to be the case in the SSMI images from June. For example, here is June 21 2012 again :



Seems fairly similar to 2016, and no significant melting is apparent in the central basin.
Does anyone understand why that is ?
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2458 on: June 21, 2016, 05:31:45 AM »
94,616 km2 drop in SIE today following a two day drop of approx. 140k
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Michael Hauber

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2459 on: June 21, 2016, 07:44:21 AM »
Seems fairly similar to 2016, and no significant melting is apparent in the central basin.
Does anyone understand why that is ?

Not sure.  From observations the satellite sensors just do not pick up lower reductions in ice concentration.  If surface melt is very strong it will be picked up, and on ADS melt ponding usually appears as a distinctive blurry smudge which is very uniform in texture.  In contrast reduction in concentration due to separation of floes tends to look grainier in texture with sharper details.  And often situations where MODIS suggests that the ice is lots of floes packed together with open water in each gap, the sensors still detect this as 100% ice.  A similar arrangement of dirt with large and small particles packed together can be 50% empty space (pore space), and while a 2 dimensional floe pattern may leave less gaps than 3 dimensional dirt, I'd expect the reduction in concentration occurring in such ice would be significant.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2460 on: June 21, 2016, 07:54:37 AM »
It's going to make interesting watching for me.  The drop is no big surprise...

GAC's didn't exist then so this is, again, another interesting season to watch.


Interesting graphs alright.

So I suppose what you are saying is only the final temperature is the one that counts?
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6roucho

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2461 on: June 21, 2016, 08:20:07 AM »
while a 2 dimensional floe pattern may leave less gaps than 3 dimensional dirt

In packing terms, a sphere occupies .666... of the container space of a circle. Devilish.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2462 on: June 21, 2016, 08:32:32 AM »
The storm has arrived. This is the current nullschool wind picture, showing 50+ km/h winds...

slow wing

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2463 on: June 21, 2016, 08:41:03 AM »
The pressure goes down to 975 hPa. It's sandwiched between baby high pressure areas in the mouth of the Bering Strait and in the Kara Sea, going up to 1017 hPa and 1020 hPa, respectively.

slow wing

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2464 on: June 21, 2016, 08:43:29 AM »
Q. how strong was the corresponding low pressure system of 21 June 2012, shown above by Rob Dekker? Was the minimum sea level pressure comparably low?

Q. how about the August 2012 GAC? What was the pressure minimum? (Neven, did you say something like 968 hPa?).

Q. What were the maximum wind speeds of those two 2012 storms? (The 51 km/h maximum of the current system doesn't seem all that extreme to me.)
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 08:51:34 AM by slow wing »

Adam Ash

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2465 on: June 21, 2016, 08:58:45 AM »
In looking at the possible implications of the storm on currents and ice movement, it is useful (for me at least!) to reflect on...

Ocean in Motion
http://oceanmotion.org/html/background/ocean-in-motion.htm

'...As the Fram slowly drifted with the ice, Nansen noticed that the direction of ice and ship movement was consistently 20 to 40 degrees to the right of the prevailing wind direction.'


Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2466 on: June 21, 2016, 10:05:26 AM »
Q. how about the August 2012 GAC? What was the pressure minimum? (Neven, did you say something like 968 hPa?).

I believe the minimum was 963 hPa, but what really made the GAC a GAC, is that it stayed around 970 hPa for 3-4 days. The current cyclone is nice and intense and everything, but very short. We should reserve the GAC label for true GACs.

Mind you, I wasn't sure at the time that GAC was a good term for the 2012 mega-storm, because what if we get another one in years to come? But it's 2016 now and we still haven't seen a GAC of similar magnitude (I believe it was the 3rd or 4th biggest/strongest Arctic storm on record, all other ones being winter storms), so the name must be apt.

BTW, the forecast is getting really interesting now, as ECMWF has continued to move to that set-up where high pressure takes back the American side of the Arctic and pushes the cyclones to Siberia. And the heat is also coming back to Beaufort. It will be very interesting to watch what happens to all those floes.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2467 on: June 21, 2016, 11:31:37 AM »
Almost a 100K km2 drop in extent today according to JAXA.  It's neck-and-neck between 2016 and 2012...

NeilT

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2468 on: June 21, 2016, 11:47:54 AM »
So I suppose what you are saying is only the final temperature is the one that counts?

No, what I'm saying is that a drop in 80N temperatures, close to 273k, given the similarities of the melt seasons so far, is no real surprise.

It's a decade later, the globe is hotter, the ice is in a worse state, so the end result will be different.  But the season, generally, is unfolding along the same lines...
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2469 on: June 21, 2016, 12:47:08 PM »
The Canadians have imagery and animations using the AVHRR instrument.  It's under the HRPT (NOAA polar orbiting) drop down.  The developing storm can be seen at the top edge, in the center of the attached image.

http://weather.gc.ca/satellite/index_e.html
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2470 on: June 21, 2016, 01:00:23 PM »
EC has the cyclone currently at 973 hPa:
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2472 on: June 21, 2016, 03:46:28 PM »
So I suppose what you are saying is only the final temperature is the one that counts?

No, what I'm saying is that a drop in 80N temperatures, close to 273k, given the similarities of the melt seasons so far, is no real surprise.

It's a decade later, the globe is hotter, the ice is in a worse state, so the end result will be different.  But the season, generally, is unfolding along the same lines...
Oh, I thought you meant you weren't surprised by a drop in the recent rates of extent decline given the graphs you posted...

Cheers for clarifying.

It would seem the max temperature s quite constrained as I have looked over some of those archived temperature grapes but they sure take wildly different routes leading up to those summer time temps.

Obviously these graphs will become very curious in the years to come... Let alone the next few days and months  :o :o :(
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2473 on: June 21, 2016, 04:00:02 PM »
...
Seems fairly similar to 2016, and no significant melting is apparent in the central basin.
Does anyone understand why that is ?
Thickness means insulation. Insulation means lots of ice is still much below zero in CAB. When clouds come, that sort of ice can refreeze much like "cold accumulator" used in a modern freezer for grid blackout times. Provided there is no rain nor mighty warm surface air, of course. IIRC there was melting alright in the CAB some 3 weeks ago, but now CAB patched itself up quite a bit. Give it some time, cool air and thick clouds, and things get icy - seen that many times on north pole webcams.
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F.Tnioli

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2474 on: June 21, 2016, 04:03:54 PM »
... The current cyclone is nice and intense and everything, but very short. We should reserve the GAC label for true GACs.
...
Aha! So one more reason to call it a "Hasty" AC. HAC for short. %)
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2475 on: June 21, 2016, 04:40:00 PM »
Quote
heat is also coming back to Beaufort. It will be very interesting to watch what happens to all those floes.
The blue has ramped up rapidly from nothing, just in the last couple of days. Since the change is synchronous across multiple floes on the Alaska facing edge and the floes are different thicknesses and sizes, this is probably a melt-related change in surface albedo rather than a transparency effect from thinning or melt ponds.

S1A radar has both the resolution and discriminatory capabilities to see melt ponds through clouds but none are evident using the very convenient PolarView portal http://www.polarview.aq/arctic though no imagery is available for the last few days.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 05:01:26 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2476 on: June 21, 2016, 05:34:45 PM »

Scribbler has another post of Arctic Sea Ice entitled: "This is What A Fossil Fuel Dystopia Looks Like — The Arctic Sea Ice is Breaking Up North of Greenland in June"

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/20/this-is-what-a-fossil-fuel-dystopia-looks-like-the-arctic-sea-ice-is-breaking-up-north-of-greenland-in-june/
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2477 on: June 21, 2016, 06:04:36 PM »
Water or snow ? Does null school can tell ?
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=precip_3hr/orthographic=3.85,95.49,1106/loc=-105.916,25.623
cci-reanalyser says snow and a bit of rain...
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 06:10:12 PM by Laurent »

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2478 on: June 21, 2016, 06:19:02 PM »
Beaufort Gyre will be spending several days at elevated temperatures... the highest noted below in the 8 hour frames is 8.1ºC (47º F). Winds are moderate with variable direction which would not produce net motion in the floes.

There is a fairly easy way of replacing nullschool's heavy overlay with a single line of edited essential parameters (not shown). This allows more of the scene to be shown at larger scale while staying within forum parameters: 'Select all' will capture text as text. Grep that in an editor into single lines for each frame. Reduce font size and paste the whole thing a new layer. Duplicate the layer and bump to superposition as many times as there are frames. Then crop these new layers to a single line and merge down into their frame. This, along with the contouring described earlier improves on unresolvable colors and makes for a better nullschool animation (which should have been offered originally!).
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 06:38:56 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2479 on: June 21, 2016, 06:24:58 PM »
A-team,... What is your first moving graphic showing?
( of course you had to post another one at the exact moment they asked me "warning ...etc"...)

Lol

I meant in the last-last moving graphic you posted you must of course understand   ;D
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2480 on: June 21, 2016, 06:52:19 PM »
Beaufort Gyre ... Winds are moderate with variable direction which would not produce net motion in the floes.

I think there should be a net displacement toward the coast, but we'll see after four or five days.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2481 on: June 21, 2016, 06:54:41 PM »
Aha! So one more reason to call it a "Hasty" AC. HAC for short. %)

Hasty, indeed. SLP went up from 973 to 974 hPa. A quick stir of the spoon.  :)
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2482 on: June 21, 2016, 08:11:08 PM »
Now this is bottom melt, see drop of salinity at Beaufort and CAB (not only the large drop around the broken ice)
Needs a click to animate
[/img]

Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2483 on: June 21, 2016, 08:22:46 PM »
Seaicesailor, nice pic! :) Do you have a similar pic/animation for the rest of the Arctic basin? ☺

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2484 on: June 21, 2016, 08:31:38 PM »
Seaicesailor, nice pic! :) Do you have a similar pic/animation for the rest of the Arctic basin? ☺
I was looking at it right now but navy server is apparently down.
It is basically the ACFNS page, select Sea Surface Salinity (SSS).
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/arctic.html
Sorry that I cant give the specific SSS link but it is down

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2485 on: June 21, 2016, 09:16:10 PM »
Seaicesailor, nice pic! :) Do you have a similar pic/animation for the rest of the Arctic basin? ☺

Server is up, the link is
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticsss_nowcast_anim30d.gif
I took the chance to download the Beaufort SSS nowcast (up) compared to last year (down), same date (btw happy Solstice). Not sure how the comparison goes.
What I could see in the animation is that there was interaction between a coastal current bringing more saline water from Chukchi sea, and a clockwise (weak) current, generating eddies in the area where floes were seen to be sucked. Whether this is wind driven or not, I don't know. I can't also say how valid the model is wrt surface salinity beneath the ice, but serve as a comparison.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 09:27:12 PM by seaicesailor »

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2486 on: June 22, 2016, 12:37:12 AM »
I've posted a second post on Melting momentum this year.

Quote
Long story short: Even though 2016 has been breaking records all year so far, as things currently stand, it will take special weather conditions for it to break any records near the end of the melting season.

ECMWF is now backing away from that set-up where high-pressure areas start pushing in from Canada/Alaska. Instead, cyclones remain dominant over the Central Arctic! Let's see if it flip flops again tomorrow, but if this forecast comes about, 2016 will start lagging other years.
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FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2487 on: June 22, 2016, 12:39:11 AM »
A-Team - Beautiful animation of Nullschool. The problem with those temperatures is that they are all model driven. It's pretty clear to me that the SST field in the Earth Nullschool data set does not verify against other data sets in the vicinity of Svalbard. I've actually gone to the trouble to check the Earth maps against north Atlantic buoy data. The spot values should not be relied on in an area with strong temperature gradients.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2488 on: June 22, 2016, 12:43:59 AM »
HAC now at 977 hPa. In and out.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2489 on: June 22, 2016, 01:02:16 AM »
i think that those are not meltponds anymore but ice flows in dark ocean water, at least the water looks a bit dark for being just meltponds. if i'm not mistaken that ice has to be gone within very little time now. any other opinion? from experience i'd say probably yes  ;)
« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 01:08:11 AM by magnamentis »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2490 on: June 22, 2016, 01:05:41 AM »
Quote
how valid the model is wrt surface salinity beneath the ice
Yes it remains a bit of a mystery how directly the sea surface salinity is actually measured under ice, even after reading the ACNFS explanation and that from SMOS (for ice <0.45m; passive microwaves) and Cryosat-2 (thicker, interferometric altimeter). The Beaufort Gyre salinity does not seem compatible with the freshwater dome there.

http://congrexprojects.com/docs/default-source/16c09-iicwg/d2_12-00_hebert.pdf?sfvrsn=2

https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/missions/esa-operational-eo-missions/smos
https://www.arcus.org/files/presentations/arctic-observing-open-science-meeting/18-november-2015/2_proshutinsky.pdf

The erratic time series below shows some May and June turbidity plume discharges of the Mackenzie River; it is limited by the relatively few cloud-free days available for this region. June 13 and especially June 18th show large discharges.

Note too how slowly the land-fast ice disappears. Some authors describe this is a barrier to discharge, but that seems quite implausible because backed-up river water would soon overtop the ice and flow unimpeded into the Beaufort Sea.

Plume water has negligible salinity so would spread out as a thin buoyant relatively warm layer that may correspond to the coastal white in the Hycom sea surface salinity map above. Some sea ice floes have recently become immersed in this discharge water but it has not occupied much of the Gyre yet (taking visible sediment as proxy for river water in the Beaufort). The plume extends about 60 km out in the final frame, occupying most of the adjacent shelf.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 01:19:41 AM by A-Team »

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2491 on: June 22, 2016, 01:54:36 AM »
Now this is bottom melt, see drop of salinity at Beaufort and CAB (not only the large drop around the broken ice)
Needs a click to animate
[/img]

Great Graphic SeaiceSailor!

however, I wonder if the interpretation is correct?  During this time period the Yukon's Mackenzie river was reaching peak volumetric flowrate at over 17,000 cubic meters per second (that is at the arctic red river shown below)  The flowrate into the beaufort was slightly higher than that!  (link:  https://wateroffice.ec.gc.ca/report/report_e.html?type=realTime&stn=10LC014 )

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2492 on: June 22, 2016, 02:41:03 AM »
The predicted ice drift speed map due to the storm doesn't look all that remarkable to me, although I'm no expert...
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicespddrf/nowcast/icespddrf2016062018_2016062100_042_arcticicespddrf.001.gif

It would seem to make sense that, the faster the ice drift, the more potential for mixing, disrupting the thermohaline heirarchy and bringing warmer, saltier water from tens of metres deep up to the surface, ready to melt some ice.

So this storm is passing through quickly and without causing wind or ice speeds that are too dramatic. It will be interesting, when the cloud cover disperses, to see if the ice has been visibly torn up anywhere along the storm path.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2493 on: June 22, 2016, 03:12:41 AM »
The predicted ice drift speed map due to the storm doesn't look all that remarkable to me, although I'm no expert...

I'll do you one better: I'm completely clueless in this field, but it does look remarkable to me for the rapid flow away from the Siberian coast that closely matches the lowering sea ice concentration predicted by HYCOM awhile ago that bbr2314 has been pointing out.

I also find the persistent SST anomalies depicted by OI SST v2 perturbing.  Beyond the widely noted disruption of the North Atlantic Drift, there are intense surface hotspots appearing where deep water should be upwelling in the North Pacific and a cold surface water plume off the coast of South America where deep water should be joining the ACC.  I have absolutely no reason to believe these are relevant or linked in any sense beyond a Rorschach test, but these are really dogged and intense anomalies.

Actual imagery generally matches the analysis pretty well, though with lessened intensity, which I'm guessing is related to the resolution.  The 5km edition in testing matches the reanalysis more closely.

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly/index.html
http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/bleaching5km/index_5km_ssta.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation

And now, back to your irregularly scheduled cyclones.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 03:20:04 AM by Okono »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2494 on: June 22, 2016, 03:16:07 AM »
Storm passing along the top edge.  4 day loop


Imagery courtesy of university of Alaska at fairbanks.
http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu/search?commit=Search&search%5Bend%5D=&search%5Bfeeds%5D%5B5%5D=1&search%5Bsensors%5D%5B3%5D=1&search%5Bsensors%5D%5B4%5D=1&search%5Bstart%5D=&utf8=

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« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 03:52:05 AM by JayW »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2495 on: June 22, 2016, 08:30:27 AM »
Great Graphic SeaiceSailor!

however, I wonder if the interpretation is correct?  During this time period the Yukon's Mackenzie river was reaching peak volumetric flowrate at over 17,000 cubic meters per second ...
Thanks Jai, but as posted above this is elaborated by the NRL

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/beaufort.html

The river discharge is an input to the HYCOM model that may or may not refect daily changes but a monthly mean or something else. Depends on the guy that hits the enter key.


Quote
Long story short: Even though 2016 has been breaking records all year so far, as things currently stand, it will take special weather conditions for it to break any records near the end of the melting season.

ECMWF is now backing away from that set-up ...

Even when hasty, it rains now pours, meaning other storms had already passed before over same corridor. Anyway if cold weather stays it can become a stagnant mess of floes I guess.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2496 on: June 22, 2016, 10:05:06 AM »
The storm currently spans all the way from the Canadian side to the Russian side of the Arctic Basin, around a line of low pressure.

There must be quite a shear force couple all the way along that low pressure line, with strong winds going in one direction on one side and in essentially the opposite direction just on the other side of the line.

Will we see any evidence of shear in the ice after the storm passes?

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2497 on: June 22, 2016, 10:52:12 AM »
Were it 2m contiguous ice the not a lot would happen slow wing , but then it isn't is it? If there are individual floes, of small enough size, then I imagine a bit of bumping occurring? The mechanical degradation of floes is one of the things that a shattered pack introduces to the mix? It may not mean much in the way of losses but they are losses that would not of occurred back in the noughties?
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2498 on: June 22, 2016, 11:42:46 AM »
Quote
how valid the model is wrt surface salinity beneath the ice
Yes it remains a bit of a mystery how directly the sea surface salinity is actually measured under ice, even after reading the ACNFS explanation and that from SMOS (for ice <0.45m; passive microwaves) and Cryosat-2 (thicker, interferometric altimeter). The Beaufort Gyre salinity does not seem compatible with the freshwater dome there.

May I suggest that the HYCOM salinity projections are a result of the HYCOM model melt projections ?
We know that these projections are a bit off (thick ice melting too fast) but still they serve at least as a qualitative indication of what's going on in the Beaufort.
And regardless of how accurate it is, the salinity animations that seaicesailor presented are truly spectacular. Thank you !
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #2499 on: June 22, 2016, 12:54:28 PM »
HAC now at 977 hPa. In and out.
Good thing it's that early within melt season, i think. Shouldn't be much damage done. If the same thing would happen August, we'd see quite a punch, eh.
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