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iceman

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3450 on: July 18, 2016, 12:26:33 PM »
This is the last I'll post on any of this, and will not clog up the thread with my counterproductive interpretations.

Please don't do that. Personally I find your contributions very interesting.

+1  This turned out to be a clarifying discussion, not off track after all.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3451 on: July 18, 2016, 12:53:06 PM »

Z stands for Zulu hour, the military way to say UTC or the same as the old GMT for practical purposes

Actually, the Z stands for "Zero" and is the offset from UTC.
...
A bit of a digression, I admit, but maybe someone will find it interesting.
Cool! thx

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3452 on: July 18, 2016, 12:54:05 PM »
I have the firm suspicion that the inflow of waters through the Bering is affecting or will affect this area.

Thanks Seaicesailor, but why do you think the waters through the Bering will affect the CAB area north of the Beaufort ?

Will do. I need some time :-)

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3453 on: July 18, 2016, 01:27:48 PM »
There's a sprinkling of snow around O-Buoy 14 this morning, at 77.45° N, 139.67° W:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/summer-2016-images/#OBuoy14

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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3454 on: July 18, 2016, 02:12:57 PM »

I stand by every word I have posted, but I'm done talking about that one piece of ice.  I shouldn't even post any of my observations, as they seem to have caused the forum to go off track, for that I apologize.  I thought I was simply reporting what I saw, and since I didn't use worldview, I was called into question.

I still say that it can snow in the arctic in July, and the storm did bring snow to some areas.  This is the last I'll post on any of this, and will not clog up the thread with my counterproductive interpretations.

Actually it was one of the coolest on-topic issues of the season. But no worries, you will not talk about that piece of ice cause it is 4+ pieces now.
Of course it snowed, according to satellite, bouy, and weather models. Coincidence doesn't exist, as Dr. House would say.

NeilT

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3455 on: July 18, 2016, 02:35:36 PM »
 I must admit that nothing I've seen this season has changed my opinion on what's going to happen this year or the next.

Yes the ice is melting and fast, post 2012 it is unlikely to do anything else.  The storms are tearing it apart.  Again why not, there is little pack cohesion or strength left outside of the area just north of the CAA and even that is suffering.

However we don't see truly stunningly massive melt back because the weather is not conducive to it. Too many cloudy days with roughly average heat.  Snow because the lows are bringing cold fronts with it and because of the cloudy weather it's not that hot over the ice yet.

Extent is still tracking 2012.  Area not quite so much so.

I did predict that July would be "average" by the end of the month with more than average heat and melt in August to make up for it.  In order to do that we're going to need faster melt towards the end of July.

I believe it should make for a miss on the 2012 lows.

However the current opened up waters with dispersed floes, even near the pole now, will make for very rapid re-freeze and sudden huge gains in volume models shortly after the freeze season sets in.  Which will set the scene for 2017.

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magnamentis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3456 on: July 18, 2016, 03:01:34 PM »
extent is becoming a usless measurement in the coming environment....

useless is a strong word but what you wanted to say is correct and i congratulate everyone who is able to shift his way of thinking to the new situation. we have an extent that is close or at the minimum and some people still think that the rest is a solid plate with melt ponds while it clearly is NOT, not even talking about the fact that the entire remaining ice is thinner than it was under the same extent/area measurements which is where the "poof" effects come from 5cm of ice today look 100% extent and tomorrow they're gone once the melt rate exceeds those 5cm. that was an example so i don't need to see comments like that the rate is higher or lower and the like.
thing is that today's extent numbers are not comparable with earlier year's extent numbers. as a little side effect the many small foes and rubble will replace meltponds that drain through the gapps with leads etc. which in case of wave action will be more vulnerable than larger solid floes with melt ponds.

last but not least, there is much more heat all around the central arctic which is increasing chances that we shall see an above average temp level in late melt season as well as in early fall, if not through all next winter like this year.

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3457 on: July 18, 2016, 03:02:45 PM »
They're all "useless" at times unless they're used wisely:)

i like this one "especially" well said and wisdom always includes the bigger picture, not singled out events, regions and time periods, not even years in some way.

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3458 on: July 18, 2016, 03:08:16 PM »
Enough of one particular chunk of ice.

For the avoidance of any doubt the BB split is even visible on AMSR2, as is much else:

thanks for another confirmation and i find it very "interesting" the nicest word i can find, how some people permanently even deny sat-images if things don't fit in their thinking pattern and compare today with 15th of July images after it was clearly documented (narrowed down) when it broke and that it's broke. now since this can be verified and sooner or later everyone has to believe the obvious, with other topics in here the same is ongoing, just choosing the days or week that fits there arguement while after certain discussions are ongoing since more than a month now we're still intermittently going back and forth between lowest and third lowest, mostly first or second, despite all the bad momentums and whathaveyou.

that said the worst for this year is still to come should the winds add more to it and the heat in the system delay the re-cooling onset.

Archimid

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3459 on: July 18, 2016, 03:10:36 PM »
Attached are the Ice concentrations for 24 July  2012 (earliest date available), 17 July 2015 and 17 July 2016.

To me the ice looks a lot more like 2012 than 2015.
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Quantum

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3460 on: July 18, 2016, 03:22:04 PM »
Attached are the Ice concentrations for 24 July  2012 (earliest date available), 17 July 2015 and 17 July 2016.

To me the ice looks a lot more like 2012 than 2015.
Honestly looks far more like 2015 to me.

Paddy

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3461 on: July 18, 2016, 03:22:59 PM »
@Archimid,

Personally, I prefer this means of comparing to prior years' concentration.

To me, 2016 doesn't look that much like either 2015 or 2012, tbh, and even if in the ways that it is similar (e.g. a little similar to 2012 in how the ice is splitting with holes likely to open in the middle and a potentially very vulnerable bit near the pacific), the weather pattern for the rest of the melting season will of course still make a big difference, one way or the other.

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3462 on: July 18, 2016, 03:24:37 PM »
This is the last I'll post on any of this, and will not clog up the thread with my counterproductive interpretations.

Please don't do that. Personally I find your contributions very interesting.

fully agree and of course it can snow in summer, it can snow up to temps of 4C at least, depending of temps at bit higher altitudes and most revelations are born by thinking out of the box or different :-)

Archimid

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3463 on: July 18, 2016, 03:39:09 PM »
@Archimid,

Personally, I prefer this means of comparing to prior years' concentration.


Thanks for the link. That is indeed a much better way to compare.

 
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Quantum

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3464 on: July 18, 2016, 04:01:53 PM »
In terms of the ice in the Laptev or even the ESS it seems to compare suprisingly well. The notable areas of deficit are the beaufort and the barents and perhaps to a lesser degree the CAA. So if the siberian stuff melts out quickly we could see alot of ice lost very quickly. However if the laptev and ESS remain above the recent average and the Beaufort loss stalls due to cooler and cloudier weather then we could loose further ground to 2012.

6roucho

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3465 on: July 18, 2016, 04:10:44 PM »
Enough of one particular chunk of ice.

For the avoidance of any doubt the BB split is even visible on AMSR2, as is much else:

thanks for another confirmation and i find it very "interesting" the nicest word i can find, how some people permanently even deny sat-images if things don't fit in their thinking pattern and compare today with 15th of July images after it was clearly documented (narrowed down) when it broke and that it's broke. now since this can be verified and sooner or later everyone has to believe the obvious, with other topics in here the same is ongoing, just choosing the days or week that fits there arguement while after certain discussions are ongoing since more than a month now we're still intermittently going back and forth between lowest and third lowest, mostly first or second, despite all the bad momentums and whathaveyou.

that said the worst for this year is still to come should the winds add more to it and the heat in the system delay the re-cooling onset.
I didn't read the discussion that way at all, magnamentis. I saw an interesting and instructive scientific argument, your posts included. I certainly know more by reading it.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 06:18:49 AM by 6roucho »

Archimid

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3466 on: July 18, 2016, 04:38:45 PM »
However if the laptev and ESS remain above the recent average and the Beaufort loss stalls due to cooler and cloudier weather then we could loose further ground to 2012.

That's certainly a possibility. I think that 30 years ago, under current weather conditions, the arctic would have experienced record growth, but 30 years ago the planet was much cooler and different so what was good weather then might be bad weather now. That said I think there is sufficient ice to keep the Arctic microclimate going. The few thick parts of ice are very dispersed  so even if the middle is very weak, the thick periphery might simulate full ice conditions ( a sort of triangulation?). If that happens, the arctic still have  good chance of >5 Mkm2.

However I think that in our record warm world(but cooling) the ice might behave very differently. That center weakness could make unusual weather patterns more likely. Also bottom melting is heavily favored by the broken condition of  the ice, and there is a whole bunch more heat available  in the periphery of the Arctic than in 2015. (See attached images)

So at this point anything can happen, including a healthy Arctic recovery. However I think global warming loads the dice in favor of less ice.
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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3467 on: July 18, 2016, 05:33:01 PM »
The latest Beaufort/Chukchi Hamburg AMSR2 video update:



It shows the effects of both the April anticyclone and the recent storm.
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Steven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3468 on: July 18, 2016, 05:34:35 PM »




Neven, I think there's something wrong with those compactness graphs.  Calculating CAJAX, I obtain the same values as in your graph above, for all the years 2007-2015, but not for 2016.  It doesn't seem to be a leap-year problem, since I got the same values as you for 2012 and 2008 (but not for 2016).  I guess the problem is that the CT-area values for the year 2016 in your spreadsheet are not aligned correctly relative to the 2007-2015 data?

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3469 on: July 18, 2016, 05:55:26 PM »
Extent is still tracking 2012.  Area not quite so much so.


Thanks for this, I was looking at comparisons on EOSDIS and your post is a perfect example of the analysis trap we are in now.

Conjecture:  structural environmental changes in the arctic region since 2005 have fundamentally changed the value of the sea ice measurement metrics of SIE (sea ice extent) and SIA (sea ice area).  This is due to a loss of structural integrity that is rapidly increasing with winter season temperature rises, increased arctic storm activity and increased arctic wave height.

Analysis:  Visit EOSDIS worldview map on August 11, 2012  This is only 38 days away from the sea ice minimum and already approaching a record low SIE.  https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,Graticule,Reference_Labels(hidden),Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines&t=2012-08-11&v=-51289.51806616859,62935.3129640675,358310.4819338314,264919.3129640675

image attached below:

compare to the most recent image of today's ice you will find that there was significantly higher structural ice pack, cohesion and material integrity in the ice pack even in mid August during the record low SIE year of 2012.  note: we still have 23 days of melt season to reach Aug 11 for a comparable date.

Result:  taking comfort that sea ice extent will come in at or slightly (or even greatly) better than in 2012 is basically meaningless at this time due to the fact that the information that SIE is communicating about the condition of the ice is not the same between 2012 and 2016.  Since the basic ice condition has changed so much from comparative melt seasons, the information that is communicated through SIE has also changed.  It is saying something completely different, almost as though the metric is speaking an entirely different language. 

Therefore: sea ice extent comparisons between 2016 and 2012 are meaningless, have absolutely no real value and, in fact, is a disservice to the body of knowledge since doing so perpetuates the falsehood that the basic conditions of the sea ice is fundamentally the same between these two years, when the reality is that they are as different as 2 different planets.

Proposal:  while SIE still provides an interesting amount of information, the only valid metric that can be used to determine sea ice health when comparing years prior to 2015 is PIOMAS sea ice volume.
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Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3470 on: July 18, 2016, 06:36:13 PM »
Neven, I think there's something wrong with those compactness graphs.  Calculating CAJAX, I obtain the same values as in your graph above, for all the years 2007-2015, but not for 2016.  It doesn't seem to be a leap-year problem, since I got the same values as you for 2012 and 2008 (but not for 2016).  I guess the problem is that the CT-area values for the year 2016 in your spreadsheet are not aligned correctly relative to the 2007-2015 data?

There's always something wrong with those confusing CT SIA dates. *sighs

Maybe we should continue this discussion in the 2016 sea ice extent and area data thread.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2016, 08:26:15 PM by Neven »
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Michael Hauber

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3471 on: July 18, 2016, 10:30:57 PM »

Proposal:  while SIE still provides an interesting amount of information, the only valid metric that can be used to determine sea ice health when comparing years prior to 2015 is PIOMAS sea ice volume.

Latest volume from PIOMAS says there is nearly 10% more ice this year than in 2012.  It is also above 2011, and only a fraction of a percent lower than 2010.

I would also suggest that the fact that extent is a long way below 1980 is a very meaningful statistic that has not been invalidated by the fact that the ice has changed in some way.  Extent very roughly delineates the portion of the world that is still cool enough to sustain sea ice, and the portion of the world that is not.

The key advantage of extent is that it is updated daily.  Volume is only updated monthly, and while area is updated daily, the day to day fluctuations are bigger than for extent.  PIOMAS is also a model, and so while it has been validated as well as it can be, and is undoubtedly reasonably accurate, extent can be compared with visual satellite images.  When extent falls to a record low there is very little doubt because you can see the ice state with your own eyes.  When PIOMAS falls to a record low, there is a lingering doubt that maybe the model went wrong somehow (90% certainty vs 99% certainty, I'm not pushing the denier meme that because its a model its useless and should be ignored).
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Nick_Naylor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3472 on: July 18, 2016, 10:51:31 PM »
Let's not forget area. Extent was basically invented to "correct" the area measurement for the inability of existing sensors to distinguish between melt ponds and open water.

When the ice is broken up as much as it is now, it causes at least as much distortion as it corrects.

JayW

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3473 on: July 19, 2016, 02:05:43 AM »
58 Hr loop of the storm, July 16/1210z - July 18/2153z. AVHRR imagery from the meteorological services of Canada, and NOAA.

http://weather.gc.ca/satellite/satellite_anim_e.html?sat=hrpt&area=dfo&type=nir

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echoughton

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3474 on: July 19, 2016, 02:48:07 AM »
Neven do you think it still possible for my 5-5.25 extent minimum prediction to come in? I believe I was the only vote for that...and then I noticed that post I think you put up quoting that Dr. Somebody predicting the same values using his set of carefully researched reasons.

Michael Hauber

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3475 on: July 19, 2016, 03:37:25 AM »
Let's not forget area. Extent was basically invented to "correct" the area measurement for the inability of existing sensors to distinguish between melt ponds and open water.

When the ice is broken up as much as it is now, it causes at least as much distortion as it corrects.

The area measurements from the newer higher resolution scanners such as Wipneus seem to filter out melt ponds better than the older area measurements such as Cryosphere Today.  Its hard to read Wipneus chart, but I think it currently has area at the lowest.  CT has area about 3rd.  PIOMAS volume is 3rd as well.  Considering 925hp temps, and visual inspection of MODIS 3-6-7 images I am confident that there are/have been significantly less melt ponds on top this year than in 2012.  This is reflected in area being behind on CT which is more heavily impacted by melt ponds.  But overall there is physically less ice (in the 2 dimension view), which is why Wipneus is ahead.  Assuming Wipneus still has some melt pond in it then the true lead for the current year is higher than shown.

So in 2 dimensions less ice.  But volume is higher.  So thickness is higher, and there is less melt ponding on top.  So overall I'd consider the ice to be in better condition this year.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3476 on: July 19, 2016, 03:43:58 AM »
FYI everybody,it seems the storm cooled the air off over the Beaufort, but the water stayed about the same.I guess that would be what common sense would have expected though.The warm water appears to still be in about the same area near shore. Maybe a worser storm would have had a different outcome.
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tzupancic

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3477 on: July 19, 2016, 05:50:16 AM »
Allow me to formally dub this 'the controversial melt of 2016'.

Kudo's in particular to Magnamentis for his recent post regarding the recently observed fragmentation of the 'big block'. 

"thanks for another confirmation and i find it very "interesting" the nicest word i can find, how some people permanently even deny sat-images if things don't fit in their thinking"

Regarding that event, obviously, thanks to the diligent forum members who tracked the multiple data sources and posted the key results here in near real time. Great work. A lot of people were following your work.

As a determined adversary of science denialism it was surprising to follow,also in near real time, exactly that sort of thinking as the 'big block' fractured before our eyes.

As a scientist I would hope that this open forum continues to accept legitimate skepticism as well as new ideas.

« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 05:56:26 AM by tzupancic »

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3478 on: July 19, 2016, 06:58:04 AM »
Neven do you think it still possible for my 5-5.25 extent minimum prediction to come in? I believe I was the only vote for that...and then I noticed that post I think you put up quoting that Dr. Somebody predicting the same values using his set of carefully researched reasons.

Maybe ask in the poll thread? But FYI, I think it's too high.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3479 on: July 19, 2016, 07:42:36 AM »
So in 2 dimensions less ice.  But volume is higher.  So thickness is higher, and there is less melt ponding on top.  So overall I'd consider the ice to be in better condition this year.

Two additional factors to consider:
1) location. The distribution of ice this year seems more dispersed and vulnerable to future melt than that in 2012 in my non-expert opinion, with concentrated ice much less consolidated. In 2016, we're seeing holes opening up in the middle of the key area that's the CAB, we're seeing much of the concentrated ice that's left potentially being exported out via Fram, we're seeing the Nares strait potentially opening really early, and some of the ice that's left is in the doomed areas of the Hudson etc. Overall, I'd say that I've condition seems more vulnerable than at this time four years ago. https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0719

2) Ice condition isn't everything. The weather for the rest of 2012 was pretty exceptional, to put it mildly.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3480 on: July 19, 2016, 08:34:33 AM »
That image was posted by slow wing, it was from Worldview, so I haven't a clue. Apologies, I looked through every image on the GINA site, MODIS and VIIRS, and didn't see that shot.

Thanks again Jay.
Yes, it seems that this whole controversy around Big Block's breakup was caused by two images :
One by Slow Wing :


Labeled Suomi2016-07-16

and one by A-Team :

labeled "Big Block on 16 July 16.png"

Both of these images show Big Block intact (suggesting they are from the early hours of the 16th).
But neither one of these two images appears in WorldView or on GINA, so I guess we have to wait for "slow wing" and "A-team" to tell us where they found these images, which made them think that Big Block was still in one piece on July 16.

Whatever the reason was for this confusion, in science it is always preferred to get to the bottom of the reason for the disagreement. "slow wing", or "A-Team", would you care to comment ?
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 08:42:32 AM by Rob Dekker »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3481 on: July 19, 2016, 11:02:59 AM »
Both of these images show Big Block intact (suggesting they are from the early hours of the 16th).
But neither one of these two images appears in WorldView or on GINA, so I guess we have to wait for "slow wing" and "A-team" to tell us where they found these images, which made them think that Big Block was still in one piece on July 16.

See my comment of July 16, 2016, 12:21:29 PM

Quote
BB still looks OK on today's Worldview VIIRS & Terra?

WorldView changes the swaths they choose to display as more arrive throughout the day. I assume they ultimately try and pick the one with fewest clouds?

For more switching swaths see:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/07/the-mid-july-surf-forecast-for-the-beaufort-sea/#comments

By way of experiment, let's wait and see how the North Pole looks on WorldView tomorrow morning?
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3482 on: July 19, 2016, 11:17:36 AM »
Allow me to formally dub this 'the controversial melt of 2016'.

As a determined adversary of science denialism it was surprising to follow,also in near real time, exactly that sort of thinking as the 'big block' fractured before our eyes.

As a scientist I would hope that this open forum continues to accept legitimate skepticism as well as new ideas.

Likewise. I'd also like to echo A-Team's request that posters of images and "opinions" provide links to their original sources as a matter of course, and to suggest that both regulars and "lurkers" click on those links and take a good look at what's on the other side!
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3483 on: July 19, 2016, 02:02:42 PM »
Even with all the holes and low concentration areas 2016 obeys the same physics as previous years. Compared to my July forecast it is slightly behind the area prediction, but it's too early to conclude a trend. 2012 and 2011 had an even bigger error at this time.

17th July area in million km2

2016
model:4.99
actual: 5.15

2012
model: 4.53
actual: 4.88

2011
model: 4.97
actual: 5.38

Edit: these are Wipneus "NSIDC Area" numbers, similar to CT area but more accurate.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 05:56:58 PM by Tealight »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3484 on: July 19, 2016, 04:58:03 PM »
(...)
17th July area in million km2

2016
model:4.99
actual: 5.15

2012
model: 4.53
actual: 4.88
(...)

Your area numbers show 2016 with 270k km^2 more area than 2012.

Wipneus' July 17th figures Show 2016 having 62k km^2 less area than 2012.

That's a pretty large discrepancy, and leads me to wonder, if you used the ASMR2 data Wipneus used, would the model have produced significantly different results?

Tealight

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3485 on: July 19, 2016, 05:54:52 PM »
Your area numbers show 2016 with 270k km^2 more area than 2012.

Wipneus' July 17th figures Show 2016 having 62k km^2 less area than 2012.

That's a pretty large discrepancy, and leads me to wonder, if you used the ASMR2 data Wipneus used, would the model have produced significantly different results?

I use Wipneus 'NSIDC area' which is different from CT and AMSR. They are nowhere published except on his website and they gave me better results than CT area and NSIDC extent.

Maybe I should try to experiment with AMSR data, but the data needs to be sensitive to melt ponds because my model relies on albedo values.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3486 on: July 19, 2016, 06:40:32 PM »
Somewhat short notice, but:

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-scientists-to-discuss-2016-climate-trends-impacts/

Quote
Climate experts from NASA will discuss recent trends in global temperatures and Arctic sea ice, as well as research now underway to better understand their impacts, during a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 19

The teleconference participants are:

Gavin Schmidt, GISS director
Walt Meier, sea ice scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
Nathan Kurtz, project scientist for NASA's Operation IceBridge at Goddard
Charles Miller, deputy science lead for the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California

Audio of the briefing will stream live at: http://www.nasa.gov/live

P.S. See also:

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/climate-trends-continue-to-break-records

A couple of pictures from the current NASA IceBridge campaign:
« Last Edit: July 19, 2016, 07:17:26 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Apocalypse4Real

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3487 on: July 19, 2016, 07:35:19 PM »
NASA Walt Meier: Early melt this year impacting Arctic Sea ice pack. Would love to know what the Arctic hole experienced.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3488 on: July 19, 2016, 08:47:36 PM »
The video to accompany the NASA press conference:



Quote
Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880. Meanwhile, five of the first six months set records for the smallest monthly Arctic sea ice extent since consistent satellite records began in 1979.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3489 on: July 19, 2016, 10:11:17 PM »
Thanks Jim Hunt. Good info.Play button not working, though,but youtube link is working fine.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3490 on: July 19, 2016, 11:47:01 PM »
More from NASA on the current IceBridge campaign:

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-science-flights-target-melting-arctic-sea-ice

Quote
“Although there have been previous airborne campaigns in the Arctic, no one has ever mapped the large-scale depth of melt ponds on sea ice using remote sensing data,” said Nathan Kurtz, IceBridge’s project scientist and a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The information we’ll collect is going to show how much water is retained in melt ponds and what kind of topography is needed on the sea ice to constrain them, which will help improve melt pond models.”
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3491 on: July 20, 2016, 12:38:14 AM »
Thanks for putting up that link. I had the time to listen to it, but to my regret no info whatsoever on what's going on right now, as we speak, how current conditions compare to those of previous years, and what we can expect in the next 6-8 weeks.

The weather still isn't extremely conducive to extent/area decreases (this might change somewhat in 4-5 days). On the other hand, SST anomaly is high all over the place, and a couple of nice, little cyclones have caused quite a bit of dispersal on the Pacific-Siberian side of the Arctic.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3492 on: July 20, 2016, 01:05:35 AM »
Although compaction is great for extent decrease, I also sometimes think that it actually makes the remaining ice stronger, by huddling it together. Dispersion is probably more destructive in the long run, but either the ice is still too thick on average, or total melting season duration isn't long enough, and that's why the impact is less visible. Things start to freeze over before damage is total (2010 is a good example of that).

Maybe a combination of the two is required for extent to really decrease a lot. Like Morse code: low (warm temps, melt onset) --- high (melt pond formation, preconditioning) --- low (dispersal, mixing, waves) --- high (more radiation, more absorption) --- low (flash melting, pack breaking into parts) --- high (prolonging the melting season, some compaction and transport).

Whatever we haven't been getting, we have been getting localized dispersal-compaction-dispersal cycles, so very little of the heat absorbed by open water has had much chance to radiate off to space, or do anything other than melt ice.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3493 on: July 20, 2016, 02:29:14 AM »
Two loops, both two weeks, July 6-19, one frame per day.  I used the I03 - I02 - I01 bands, as I thought it might be easier for people to see the ice.

First attachment is 2012
Second is 2016

Edit: Alaska is at the bottom, Wrangel island can be seen in the lower left corner.

http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu

« Last Edit: July 20, 2016, 02:34:51 AM by JayW »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3494 on: July 20, 2016, 04:50:43 AM »


Dates from 2012 and 2015 were chosen to represent the lowest concentration values N85 for the respective melt seasons.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3495 on: July 20, 2016, 05:27:27 AM »
We can now do the 19 July year-to-year comparison from Neven's terrific display of University Bremen's sea ice graphs: https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0719

To me it appears this year has the most 'rotten core' of any year on record, with 2012 second.

For every previous year, the regions with mostly yellow at this date have melted out completely by the end of the melt season, along with some other regions that are still solidly crimson.

 To see this most easily, set up another browser window with the corresponding maps from 13 September - https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0913 - align the two pages and toggle between them. (Or see below. Or someone could do a gif of this  :) )

 This year, the ice in the Russian half of the Arctic is essentially all first year ice if I recall correctly. So I doubt the lobe of crimson ice in the Siberian Sea will survive the season. Some of the bigger region in the Barents Sea may or may not, in my opinion, depending on the weather.

  Either way, based on the amount of yellow showing and visual inspection of the state of the ice, I expect a lot of in situ melt this year, with ice in the interior going 'poof' rather than just ice around the perimeter being eaten away.

  So I continue to think 2016 is likely to be a record low year for the Arctic sea ice, on comparing the state of the ice now with at the same date in previous years and for the reasons just given.

FIGURES:
a) ice maps for selected years on 19 July
b) same for 13 September
« Last Edit: July 20, 2016, 05:35:16 AM by slow wing »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3496 on: July 20, 2016, 07:24:45 AM »
 good article at Nasa today
July 19, 2016
2016 Climate Trends Continue to Break Records
Two key climate change indicators -- global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent -- have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analyses of ground-based observations and satellite data.

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet's warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.


Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880. Meanwhile, five of the first six months set records for the smallest monthly Arctic sea ice extent since consistent satellite records began in 1979.
This video is public domain and can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio.
Five of the first six months of 2016 also set records for the smallest respective monthly Arctic sea ice extent since consistent satellite records began in 1979, according to analyses developed by scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. The one exception, March, recorded the second smallest extent for that month.

While these two key climate indicators have broken records in 2016, NASA scientists said it is more significant that global temperature and Arctic sea ice are continuing their decades-long trends of change. Both trends are ultimately driven by rising concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The extent of Arctic sea ice at the peak of the summer melt season now typically covers 40 percent less area than it did in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Arctic sea ice extent in September, the seasonal low point in the annual cycle, has been declining at a rate of 13.4 percent per decade.

overhead view of sea ice showing brown sediments
Chunks of sea ice, melt ponds and open water are all seen in this image captured at an altitude of 1,500 feet by the NASA's Digital Mapping System instrument during an Operation IceBridge flight over the Chukchi Sea on Saturday, July 16, 2016.
Credits: NASA/Goddard/Operation IceBridge
"While the El Niño event in the tropical Pacific this winter gave a boost to global temperatures from October onwards, it is the underlying trend which is producing these record numbers," GISS Director Gavin Schmidt said.

Previous El Niño events have driven temperatures to what were then record levels, such as in 1998. But in 2016, even as the effects of the recent El Niño taper off, global temperatures have risen well beyond those of 18 years ago because of the overall warming that has taken place in that time.

graph showing upward trend
The first six months of 2016 were the warmest six-month period in NASA's modern temperature record, which dates to 1880.
Credits: NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies
The global trend in rising temperatures is outpaced by the regional warming in the Arctic, said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard.

"It has been a record year so far for global temperatures, but the record high temperatures in the Arctic over the past six months have been even more extreme," Meier said. "This warmth as well as unusual weather patterns have led to the record low sea ice extents so far this year."

NASA tracks temperature and sea ice as part of its effort to understand the Earth as a system and to understand how Earth is changing. In addition to maintaining 19 Earth-observing space missions, NASA also sends researchers around the globe to investigate different facets of the planet at closer range. Right now, NASA researchers are working across the Arctic to better understand both the processes driving increased sea ice melt and the impacts of rising temperatures on Arctic ecosystems.

NASA's long-running Operation IceBridge campaign last week began a series of airborne measurements of melt ponds on the surface of the Arctic sea ice cap. Melt ponds are shallow pools of water that form as ice melts. Their darker surface can absorb more sunlight and accelerate the melting process. IceBridge is flying out of Barrow, Alaska, during sea ice melt season to capture melt pond observations at a scale never before achieved. Recent studies have found that the formation of melt ponds early in the summer is a good predictor of the yearly minimum sea ice extent in September.

"No one has ever, from a remote sensing standpoint, mapped the large-scale depth of melt ponds on sea ice," said Nathan Kurtz, IceBridge’s project scientist and a sea ice researcher at NASA Goddard. "The information we’ll collect is going to show how much water is retained in melt ponds and what kind of topography is needed on the sea ice to constrain them, which will help improve melt pond models."

Operation IceBridge is a NASA airborne mission that has been flying multiple campaigns at both poles each year since 2009, with a goal of maintaining critical continuity of observations of sea ice and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

At the same time, NASA researchers began in earnest this year a nearly decade-long, multi-faceted field study of Arctic ecosystems in Alaska and Canada. The Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) will study how forests, permafrost and other ecosystems are responding to rising temperatures in the Arctic, where climate change is unfolding faster than anywhere else on the planet.

ABoVE consists of dozens individual experiments that over years will study the region's changing forests, the cycle of carbon movement between the atmosphere and land, thawing permafrost, the relationship between fire and climate change, and more.

For more information on NASA's Earth science activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earth

For more information about NASA's IceBridge, visit:

www.nasa.gov/icebridge

For more information about the ABoVE mission, visit:

http://above.nasa.gov/

By Patrick Lynch

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Feeltheburn

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3497 on: July 20, 2016, 09:31:22 AM »
Let's not forget area. Extent was basically invented to "correct" the area measurement for the inability of existing sensors to distinguish between melt ponds and open water.

When the ice is broken up as much as it is now, it causes at least as much distortion as it corrects.

I see your point about what extent may mean for the melting season, but what about the freezing season?  What does a higher extent of more broken up and widely dispersed ice portend for the freezing season?  As a chemist we know that crystals form more rapidly when there are already seed crystals present.  Supercooled water can remain liquid well below freezing until it is exposed to a tiny ice crystal.  And then bam!! (to quote or paraphrase Frivolous), ice will immediately form throughout the entirety of the water.  Isn't it possible that a wide extent of broken up ice chunks dispersed more evenly throughout the Arctic than usual might act like a bunch of seed crystals that will cause more rapid and extensive re-freezing of ice in October through December compared to the type and speed of freezing that occurs with open waters?  I can see that this summer the broken up ice might suddenly turn into a huge expanse of ice-free open water, as happened in 2012.  If so, then my vote of a higher than the polled average of ice extent will be way off and I will eat crow-shaped ice chunks.  But if minimum ice extent turns out to be 4,500,000+ km2 and the ice at this time is more widely dispersed than it normally is, it might very well result in more rapid, extensive, and complete freezing once the Arctic turns to freezing. 

I have seen what appear to me to be contradictory positions.  On the one hand, we're told that well-dispersed broken up ice is out of the ordinary and setting the Arctic up for massing melting.  On the other hand, we're told that ice pushed to one side to form thicker stacks of compacted ice earlier this season is not good for ice either and setting the Arctic up for massing melting.  But I doubt if both points of view can be correct.  Also, let's be sure that when we are comparing the state of the ice today that we are looking with the same level of granularity that we considered back in the 1980s.  Isn't it possible that measurements were more crude back then, equipment less sophisticated, and that when we weren't predicting massive ice losses when ice was high we were not counting melt ponds and every crack in the same level of detail as we do now?  If we are noticing things now that were not noticed before, is that because they didn't happen before or they simply were not noticed?  Has anyone else had the experience of learning a new word for the first time and then seeing it show up everywhere like I have?  Does that mean the word wasn't used before or simply that our brains or computer models ignored it?

What about the difference in measurement accuracy and level of care taken by those taking the measurements?  For example, if in 1890 all temperature gauges were mercury thermometers with a high degree of inaccuracy, perhaps being accurate to + or - 2 degrees C, and the readers back then were not as interested in precision as they rare now or were simply not capable of being as accurate because of the relative crudeness of the measuring apparatus, how can we compare such readings with those made to a hundredth of a degree using sophisticated computerized readings with well placed weather balloons and buoys?  What if the readers in Siberia were drinking vodka when taking the readings?  I am not trying to be a troll but simply stating that people notice more details when they care to do so and it is quite possible that the historic record may not be as accurate and complete as it should be to make clear, accurate and realist comparisons.
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Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3498 on: July 20, 2016, 09:48:00 AM »
FeelTheBurn, if you have a point, make it.
Otherwise, while I am a Bernie supporter, please <shut up>.

<edit Neven: Come on, Rob, leave the F out, or else it will never be about the point>
« Last Edit: July 20, 2016, 12:26:41 PM by Neven »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3499 on: July 20, 2016, 09:52:03 AM »
Just to be sure, I don't pretend to know anything and defer to the experts on this forum.  But the nature of my profession is that I question everything and accept nothing at face value but demand myself and others to always dig deeper before reaching a definitive conclusion.  I'm new here and certainly don't know the history of everyone's knowledge journey.  But as concerns predictions of ice extent, particularly the more wild predictions of total collapse of Arctic ice this summer, I detect more emotion and belief than slavish devotion to facts and data. 

Again, I defer to the experts and apologize in advance if I have hurt anyone's feelings. http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/Smileys/default/embarrassed.gif
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