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Nick_Naylor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3850 on: August 05, 2016, 01:16:23 PM »
Calving of Petermann glacier looks to have been accompanied by a surge of water flow as well - enough to cause a split in Nares flow. Image needs a click.

Andreas T

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3851 on: August 05, 2016, 03:13:53 PM »
There is a thread on the Nares Strait here http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,176.msg84697.html#msg84697 where information on that topic does not get lost among other comments
There was some discussion here by Rox the Geologist and binntho of the North East Water polynya, The german researchvessel Polarstern is in that area now and is reporting water temperatures http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=dblk
readings of 2.6oC are surprisingly high.

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3852 on: August 05, 2016, 03:36:03 PM »
Quote
Paddy #3840: The August 3rd update of NSIDC's Arctic sea ice news makes for interesting reading  http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
I re-did the graphics of Fig.2 (July 2016 temperature and pressure anomalies) first by rotating and resizing so that the map is in standard NSIDC/WorldView polar stereographic projection (might not NSIDC have done this to begin with?), first adding a land mask because the original image did not distinguish coastlines from temperature and pressure contours (cartography 101), and second rescaling the anomaly maps to overlay a reasonably scaled Arctic Ocean terra image of August 3rd to make clear where the pressure and temperature anomalies sit relative to sea ice features.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2016, 04:36:09 PM by A-Team »

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3853 on: August 05, 2016, 03:51:45 PM »
Here is what 2014 and 2015 looked like from 01 Aug to 25 Sept, the former not as similar as 2013 (top, repeated from earlier) to the current year.  Indeed early August 2016 is proving a 'fluid situation' as several people anticipated above. Dates are in frame names if gif is downloaded.

« Last Edit: August 05, 2016, 04:35:09 PM by A-Team »

binntho

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3854 on: August 05, 2016, 04:00:26 PM »
There was some discussion here by Rox the Geologist and binntho of the North East Water polynya, The german researchvessel Polarstern is in that area now and is reporting water temperatures http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=dblk
readings of 2.6oC are surprisingly high.

Thanks for that link AndreasT! It's very interesting to look at the temperature figures for the last 5 days, the first couple of days the ship is inside the ice tongue with mostly negative temps, down to -1.6, and then it enters the polynya and the temeratures jump several degrees, the highest I saw was 4.8 degrees yesterday at 22:00. 
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RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3855 on: August 05, 2016, 05:26:59 PM »
There was some discussion here by Rox the Geologist and binntho of the North East Water polynya, The german researchvessel Polarstern is in that area now and is reporting water temperatures http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=dblk
readings of 2.6oC are surprisingly high.

Thanks for that link AndreasT! It's very interesting to look at the temperature figures for the last 5 days, the first couple of days the ship is inside the ice tongue with mostly negative temps, down to -1.6, and then it enters the polynya and the temeratures jump several degrees, the highest I saw was 4.8 degrees yesterday at 22:00.

So it's being refreshed by warm Atlantic water. 4.8°C is really warm, but as soon as it melts any ice I would think that it would sink rapidly, as water is at it's most dense at 4°. It looks like one of the impacts of the especially warm Atlantic is that the Fram ice export is melting out closer and closer to 79.5°N, where part of the WSC circulates.

That, and the lack of Barents sea ice to cool Atlantic water before it reaches the continental slope would also suggest that the long term effect on the Arctic will be an initial warming of the Atlantic waters in the Arctic (the layer below the cold fresh layer, 200-800m). I'd hypothesize that it will strengthen the halocline; the Atlantic water layer will become more dense as it approaches 4°C. However, where the halocline breaks down (say in the Beaufort Gyre) and when and where Ekman pumping happens, you'd expect a rapid melt out of the ice. This has probably been going on for more than one year, and we might already be seeing the long term effects with the early breakup of the Gyre.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3856 on: August 05, 2016, 06:43:56 PM »
The ECMWF ensembles agree that the current weather pattern will change soon. According to this forecast: the anticyclone will gradually merge with the Greenland high and the heat will come no longer from ESS  but from Alaska and then the CAA, and what a heat wave.
The low occupies a more central position in 4 days, less compaction. Coupled with Greenland high to produce powerful pressure gradient and winds toward Svalbard and Greenland sea. Ensembles don't agree on the depth of the cyclone though. Laptev cold as usual.
The main ECMWF forecast and the GFS agree this 4-day forecast.

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsecmeur.html
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/forecasts2
« Last Edit: August 05, 2016, 08:50:58 PM by seaicesailor »

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3857 on: August 05, 2016, 06:50:07 PM »
@neven just move this if there is a dedicated thread. i thought it's a good moment to look at things
globally for a moment :-)


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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3858 on: August 05, 2016, 06:58:29 PM »
@neven just move this if there is a dedicated thread. i thought it's a good moment to look at things
globally for a moment :-)
Interesting,.. expecially the black line for 2015  :P
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magnamentis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3859 on: August 05, 2016, 10:03:49 PM »
abbot is back apparently :-)  8)

Ice Shieldz

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3860 on: August 06, 2016, 12:39:00 AM »
. . . Coupled with Greenland high to produce powerful pressure gradient and winds toward Svalbard and Greenland sea. Ensembles don't agree on the depth of the cyclone though. Laptev cold as usual.
The main ECMWF forecast and the GFS agree this 4-day forecast.

Since there is agreement, i created nullschool anim starting yesterday and going 4 days forward from today.  Yup, lots of wind shown channeling along northern CAA and Greenland headed in the direction of the Fram, etc.  The wind's path is over some of the Arctic's thickest ice, which from my limited understanding has more ridges and topology to act as sails for the wind.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2016, 12:49:50 AM by Ice Shieldz »

bill kapra

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3861 on: August 06, 2016, 12:57:09 AM »
Greetings all and thanks from a longtime lurker for such a great conversation.

I'm a physicist/dynamicist so just an amateur re. climatology, hence the lurking...

Am moved to post now because of the interesting SST anomaly surrounding the large, fractured section of Ice in the ESS. This "big blob" of cold seems to be finally encircled by warm water.

I'm wondering what you all know about the subsurface currents in the CAB and whether the northern edge of that encirclement can supply the heat necessary to maintain itself as the central pack solidifies.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3862 on: August 06, 2016, 07:29:25 AM »
Now the northern sea route could open soon. The remaining ice in the Laptev Sea is already subjected to losses by drift and melt due to that cyclone.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3863 on: August 06, 2016, 07:39:51 AM »
You can really see the melt zone now off the New Siberian Islands.
And the open water absorbs heat(second image)
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3864 on: August 06, 2016, 07:47:22 AM »
Also,to note, the area of the Beaufort absorbing heat via insolation growing as ice concentration dwindles.
And the final, just for comparison, SST anomaly map. You may note another area of interest at the Lincoln Sea entrance to the Nare's Strait






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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3865 on: August 06, 2016, 11:23:28 AM »
IJIS continues totally apathetic to the current conditions. The Arctic is full of surprises.
The drift speed toward the Atlantic is considerable, the ice might reach Svalbard again next week before it melts out, ... but that can't make up for the compaction in ESS  and CAB

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3866 on: August 06, 2016, 11:57:41 AM »
Making a gif out of the ECMWF 50-member ensemble forecasts. Ensemble-averaged mean sea level pressure (white lines) and standard deviation of the ensemble (in colors) for the next seven days.
Interesting to verify that the level of uncertainty remains low until day 4 included, and wherever it becomes large, it follows the pattern of MSL pressure. That means that the deviations are not so much on the predicted pattern, but on localized variations of its features.
However from day 5 and on the deviations explode and also become a mess more and more independent of the underlying prediction.
So I would not put any trust on the main forecast prediction of a continuation of the current conditions starting from Wednesday.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2016, 12:15:37 PM by seaicesailor »

Richard Rathbone

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3867 on: August 06, 2016, 02:04:42 PM »
Greetings all and thanks from a longtime lurker for such a great conversation.

I'm a physicist/dynamicist so just an amateur re. climatology, hence the lurking...

Am moved to post now because of the interesting SST anomaly surrounding the large, fractured section of Ice in the ESS. This "big blob" of cold seems to be finally encircled by warm water.

I'm wondering what you all know about the subsurface currents in the CAB and whether the northern edge of that encirclement can supply the heat necessary to maintain itself as the central pack solidifies.

Positive SST anomalies near ice are just telling you that there is less ice now than was typical 20 years ago.

A-Team

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3868 on: August 06, 2016, 02:30:36 PM »
I am offline traveling for a couple of weeks but maybe someone here can help. See, I made this really cool animation of the last 12 days ending Aug 5th but somehow lost track of the dates. So one of the animations is running in correct sequence but another, also in correct sequence, is running backwards (time-reversed).

In trying to fix, I'm afraid another version got totally scrambled into random order. So which is which? -- don't have time myself to straighten it out but presumably there is some sense to day to day ice movement, dispersion, compaction, and atmospheric artifact progression.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3869 on: August 06, 2016, 03:17:17 PM »
Clear skies today over south-east Beaufort sea, the remnants of the last ice batch imported from CAB can be seen using Worldview, forming nice swirls, and revealing the eddies that are mixing sub-zero waters with warm and more saline waters from the coast.
I superimpose the Terra Brightness Temperature day, palette squeezed to 268.5 K - 277.4 K.
http://go.nasa.gov/2aWv55b
 
Apart from cloud and fog interferences, the IR show the mixing patterns formed by colder waters within and around the ice patch. A bit striking, there seems to be a stripe of very cold water already void of ice, see blue elongated feature at the upper part of the picture.

In years when Beaufort sea did not open up so soon (2013/2014), all this mixing would have been inhibited by a much less mobile ice pack. This is another positive feedback.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2016, 03:27:57 PM by seaicesailor »

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3870 on: August 06, 2016, 03:21:21 PM »
I am offline traveling for a couple of weeks but maybe someone here can help. See, I made this really cool animation of the last 12 days ending Aug 5th but somehow lost track of the dates. So one of the animations is running in correct sequence but another, also in correct sequence, is running backwards (time-reversed).

In trying to fix, I'm afraid another version got totally scrambled into random order. So which is which? -- don't have time myself to straighten it out but presumably there is some sense to day to day ice movement, dispersion, compaction, and atmospheric artifact progression.
A-Team, given those choices it appears that which image is which is most easily seen by looking at the remnants of Big Block, just below mid-height and near the left edge.

In the order you showed them:
For W.gif, the remnants dance around randomly => scrambled
For Q.gif they grow and reassemble => time reversed
For T.gif they break apart and get smaller => correct time sequence.


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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3871 on: August 06, 2016, 11:15:04 PM »
I agree with Slow Wing's order, but based on a little different analysis.

W. The part to the North East of greenland is growing/shrinking.
Q. The same part to the NE of greenland is shrinking. Judging by the  prevailing winds  in the last days I would have expected the opposite.
T. The same part of Greenland is heading east, like the winds suggest. Also this one the many peripheral zones with ice is clearly shrinking.
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JayW

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3872 on: August 07, 2016, 02:34:42 AM »
55 Hr loop, AVHRR images courtesy of NOAA and the Meteorological Services of Canada.

I removed some frames.  Animation always available here.
http://weather.gc.ca/satellite/satellite_anim_e.html?sat=hrpt&area=dfo&type=nir
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3873 on: August 07, 2016, 09:38:31 AM »
Clear skies today over south-east Beaufort sea, the remnants of the last ice batch imported from CAB can be seen using Worldview, forming nice swirls, and revealing the eddies that are mixing sub-zero waters with warm and more saline waters from the coast.
I superimpose the Terra Brightness Temperature day, palette squeezed to 268.5 K - 277.4 K.
http://go.nasa.gov/2aWv55b
 
Apart from cloud and fog interferences, the IR show the mixing patterns formed by colder waters within and around the ice patch. A bit striking, there seems to be a stripe of very cold water already void of ice, see blue elongated feature at the upper part of the picture.
...
Those blues are I think due to thin clouds which absorb some of the IR emitted from the ground and have low emission themselves because they are high and cold. Toggling between AQUA and TERRA helps to identify the more sharply outlined clouds, probably contrails, which move in the time between those satellite overflights. There is a lighter hue in the visible images which I attribute to those thin clouds, they do not completely obliterate the IR signature of the ice features below but filter a noticeable part of the transmission.
As useful as these IR images are, and I love the ability to tweak the colour scale, their interpretation is a bit ambiguous and I have noticed before that contributions from the atmosphere are not always as easy to identify as I would like.
It is the same issue we find in interpreting AMSR charts. It is great to have those tools, to have them so accessible is a huge improvement and it provides useful information. To be overconfident in what we see in them would be a mistake and to know their limitations makes us better at extracting information from them and combining it with information from other sources (when and where we have that)

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3874 on: August 07, 2016, 11:33:37 AM »
...
Apart from cloud and fog interferences, the IR show the mixing patterns formed by colder waters within and around the ice patch. A bit striking, there seems to be a stripe of very cold water already void of ice, see blue elongated feature at the upper part of the picture.
...
Those blues are I think due to thin clouds which absorb some of the IR emitted from the ground and have low emission themselves because they are high and cold. Toggling between AQUA and TERRA helps to identify the more sharply outlined clouds, probably contrails, which move in the time between those satellite overflights. There is a lighter hue in the visible images which I attribute to those thin clouds, they do not completely obliterate the IR signature of the ice features below but filter a noticeable part of the transmission.
As useful as these IR images are, and I love the ability to tweak the colour scale, their interpretation is a bit ambiguous and I have noticed before that contributions from the atmosphere are not always as easy to identify as I would like.
... To be overconfident in what we see in them would be a mistake and to know their limitations makes us better at extracting information from them and combining it with information from other sources (when and where we have that)
Thank you Andreas! Just in case I was unclear, I was referring to the blue feature that I have encircled (not the top one that is clearly a cloud of some sort). I superimpose the visible image.
I compared these IR images with HYCOM SSS animations before, to validate the simulations to some extent. These show turbulent mixing through hundred of kilometers in the Beaufort sea.
Now the visible ice also reveal these eddies, and are in agreement with the IR images. Moreover, the IR images show mixing patterns even where there is no ice (that blue plume and the red one right below it).
I didn't know what these eddies were when they started to show up in June. And whether the open water in Beaufort sea is quiet with little heat and salinity transfer between coast and the ice pack edge, or if it looks more like a stirred bottle. I have little doubt now that it is the latter case but it is open to other interpretations.
Of course I agree we have to be cautious to not over-read from these highly sophisticated products, but that is why I have ended up comparing three different sources. A lot for an aficionado to be honest :-) but I have fun

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3875 on: August 07, 2016, 11:51:06 AM »
The highs are hanging on, (flash) melting and compaction potential is large, maybe in September things look a bit like 2007:
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3876 on: August 07, 2016, 02:15:14 PM »
In 30 days or so it is going to look a lot more like 2012.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3877 on: August 07, 2016, 04:07:57 PM »
Phil, I think Neven is referring to the possible shape of the remaining ice due to the situation that in Laptev it might not melt completely. In regard to volume, extent, area and over all state of the ice you are probably right that 2016 will be much closer to 2012.
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3878 on: August 07, 2016, 07:31:06 PM »
Laptev might not 'melt out' but it could sure as hell be blasted out if some late Aug storm were to target it! With all the open waters around any contiguous stretch is open to be being torn apart?
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3879 on: August 08, 2016, 02:30:43 AM »
My prediction of what the minimum will look like. Surprisingly if you take the region where the largely high concentration ice ends and draw an outline; it looks alot like the minimum. Certainly when you do hind-casts and draw outlines in this way from previous August 6ths its reasonably accurate which is perhaps surprising given the ice obviously drifts about.


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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3880 on: August 08, 2016, 09:17:49 AM »
.....
I compared these IR images with HYCOM SSS animations before, to validate the simulations to some extent. These show turbulent mixing through hundred of kilometers in the Beaufort sea.
Now the visible ice also reveal these eddies, and are in agreement with the IR images. Moreover, the IR images show mixing patterns even where there is no ice (that blue plume and the red one right below it).
I didn't know what these eddies were when they started to show up in June. And whether the open water in Beaufort sea is quiet with little heat and salinity transfer between coast and the ice pack edge, or if it looks more like a stirred bottle. I have little doubt now that it is the latter case but it is open to other interpretations.
Of course I agree we have to be cautious to not over-read from these highly sophisticated products, but that is why I have ended up comparing three different sources. A lot for an aficionado to be honest :-) but I have fun
I very much agree, what is happening there is the mixing of waters of various temperature and salinity. How much mixing and how fast will have a large effect on how much more melting of ice we are going to see until the season is over. The heat which will melt ice for the next month is largely already in the water I think. Frustratingly the more I learn about it the more complexity I see.
As Jays animations make visible very well, there are shorter term movements which can be quite fast and longer term slower movement which due to their persistence have larger effects. (we saw an example with the Beaufort gyre earlier in the year) These larger scale movements are not so easy to see. Keeping track of the shifting ice formations of longer periods can be a struggle with clouds interruption the view (I have shown some examples in the past). A-team's animation of the UH AMSR2 chart is very promising for that purpose, ice movement can be seen in the examples he has shown by following distinctive features.




seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3881 on: August 08, 2016, 07:33:01 PM »
Predicted drift ACNFS, today to end of week
@ Bill Fothergill it seems Laptev sea ice will be drifting away from the coast and the strait this week, good chances the Northabout can cross to the Laptev soon.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3882 on: August 09, 2016, 01:50:17 AM »
Attached is a loop of August 1-8.

Sorry about the "jerky" nature, the GINA site hasn't had is full suite of images for a couple days.

Edit: oh yeah, Wrangel island is in the lower left corner.

http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu
« Last Edit: August 09, 2016, 02:00:58 AM by JayW »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3883 on: August 09, 2016, 08:22:45 AM »
August 9 is about the date that 60 deg N and 90 deg N receive the same amount of insolation.
And it is still pretty high (the same as the equator receives at this date) :



Now, with some 400 W/m^2 insolation, some 200 W/m^2 will make it to the surface with average weather. Count in a -70 W/m^2 LW (IR) radiation imbalance (see Andreas numbers), this mean that any surface with an albedo higher than 1 - 70/200 = 0.65 will start cooling, while any surface with an albedo lower than that is still warming up.

In other words, small shallow melting ponds will start freezing over, while deep, dark melting ponds will still continue to melt. Pretty much what we see on Obuoy's web cam :



Following the same calculations, open ocean is still absorbing some 130 W/m^2 even with average weather. In clear weather, this can easily top 300 W/m^2. That is still enough power to bottom-melt some 3-8 cm of ice of equal size to the open water.

This means that any ice close to open water is subject to significant bottom-melt from heat absorbed in the nearby open ocean water. With the highly fragmented, already thinned-out, ice this year in the very large ESS-Beaufort-Laptev triangle, means that there will be a LOT of ice melting to come (with more "flash-melts" to come).

The open ocean areas in that triangle is simply still absorbing insane amounts of heat right now.

And thus, I do NOT expect the current rate of ice loss to slow down any time soon (at least not until September).
« Last Edit: August 09, 2016, 08:36:59 AM by Rob Dekker »
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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3884 on: August 09, 2016, 11:28:24 AM »
Rob:

I and I imagine many others appreciate your insightful analysis. Thanks for the above post and other contributions you've made.

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3885 on: August 09, 2016, 02:27:03 PM »
Eric Holthaus on Alaska:

Quote
July's monthly nationwide climate numbers are out, and it's not looking good for our northernmost state.

Alaska is the fastest warming part of the United States, a fact that's starting to become glaringly obvious. Forests are migrating northwards, the permafrost is thawing, snow cover is decreasing, land is eroding at a faster clip—and countless other impacts have disrupted everyday life. Last month, the temperature reached 85 degrees Fahrenheit on the North Slope, the warmest temperature evker recorded anywhere near Alaska's Arctic coast.

And now, a new milestone has been reached: Over the past 12 months, Alaska's statewide temperature was exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit, about six degrees warmer than "normal". We've entered a new phase of global warming: An entire frozen land has just jumped above the melting point.

Needless to say, 2016 is on track to be Alaska's warmest on record. This year's warmth likely won't linger in full force without occasional dips back below freezing, but it surely is a sign of years to come.
http://tinyletter.com/sciencebyericholthaus/letters/today-in-weather-climate-alaska-s-officially-melting-edition-tuesday-august-9th
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Thawing Thunder

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Clean composite August 6-8
« Reply #3886 on: August 09, 2016, 07:00:51 PM »
Here a new clean composite from August 6-8. I used the three images of the last 48 hours and handpicked the brightest areas in Photoshop. There are certainly some distortion due to drift, but it also quits many clouds. It should give a general view of the ongoing melt. (Edit: I loaded up a more precise version, maybe some parts were irritating)
« Last Edit: August 09, 2016, 11:06:54 PM by Thawing Thunder »
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seaicesailor

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Re: Clean composite August 6-8
« Reply #3887 on: August 09, 2016, 08:15:48 PM »
Here a new clean composite from August 6-8. I used the three images of the last 48 hours and handpicked the brightest areas in Photoshop. There are certainly some distortion due to drift, but it also quits many clouds. It should give a general view of the ongoing melt.

TT but should not be the opposite with these Bremen maps? I may be wrong but iirc the weather interferences here appear as bright areas.

Thawing Thunder

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3888 on: August 09, 2016, 10:12:41 PM »
Seaicesailor, I think the brightest areas are those with the strongest melt. Purple areas have the least. Clouds frequently cover the melt areas which then turn purple on the graph. That's at least as I understand and observe it.

My intention is to show theses melt areas - or more precisely, those areas with less concentration - that are probably covered by clouds. Making a composite of three images that are produced within 48 hours doesn't eliminate factors like ice drift, but it at least limits them - while clouds move much faster. The possibility to show an image greatly freed from cloud interferences becomes bigger the more days you integrate into the composite. But I think 48 hours is a fair compromise between all the influencing factors like drift, melt and cloud movement.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2016, 10:31:19 PM by Thawing Thunder »
The Thunder was father of the first people, and the Moon was the first mother. But Maxa'xâk, the evil horned serpent, destroyed the Water Keeper Spirit and loosed the waters upon the Earth and the first people were no more.

Rob Dekker

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3889 on: August 10, 2016, 08:25:52 AM »
Rob:

I and I imagine many others appreciate your insightful analysis. Thanks for the above post and other contributions you've made.

Thanks budmantis, I appreciate that.
Note that you should take the exact numbers with a grain of salt.
The take-away message is that in this end-game of the melting season, ice cools and water warms, so the albedo-feedback does not end when melting ponds freeze over. It continues causing bottom melt in low concentration ice fields well into September.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2016, 09:44:35 AM by Rob Dekker »
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Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3890 on: August 10, 2016, 08:08:01 PM »
Latest 12z operational GFS depicrs the possibility of a Big Pac Mac cyclone bombing out to 974 hpa by day 5 and remain below 980 hpa for another two days.

ECMWF 12z op is supporting this solution and is even more bullish, bottoming out at 969 hpa.

Regatdless of the final intensity, the cyclone should make a huge damage to the ice as it seems to affect the slushy "tongue" in the CAB. Of course, there is a few days ahead so things can change but what if...  :)
« Last Edit: August 10, 2016, 10:05:43 PM by Lord M Vader »

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3891 on: August 10, 2016, 10:50:49 PM »
it seems Laptev sea ice will be drifting away from the coast and the strait this week, good chances the Northabout can cross to the Laptev soon.

Northabout rounded Cape Chelyuskin yesterday. The crew are now beaming back pictures of the sea ice they have encountered in the Laptev Sea:

http://polarocean.co.uk/sea-state-documentation/
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AbruptSLR

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3892 on: August 10, 2016, 10:57:21 PM »
Latest 12z operational GFS depicrs the possibility of a Big Pac Mac cyclone bombing out to 974 hpa by day 5 and remain below 980 hpa for another two days.

ECMWF 12z op is supporting this solution and is even more bullish, bottoming out at 969 hpa.

Regatdless of the final intensity, the cyclone should make a huge damage to the ice as it seems to affect the slushy "tongue" in the CAB. Of course, there is a few days ahead so things can change but what if...  :)

Here are some ECMWF 500-hPa forecasts plots for August 15 & 16, 2016 that help bring this possibility into focus:
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3893 on: August 10, 2016, 11:58:26 PM »
The weakening dipole still around until Saturday compacting Chukchi-ESS-Laptev ice.

slow wing

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3894 on: August 11, 2016, 06:16:32 AM »
Yep, as discussed above, hang on to your hats ladies and gentlemen!

The Arctic forecasts are dominated by low pressure and there is clearly going to be a lot of wind over the next week or so. As shown below (see lower left corner of plot) ECMWF has a genuine storm extending over most of the Arctic Basin and going down to 966 hPa in the 120h forecast!

I'm not sure where the ice is safe from that.
 o the Pacific side has already disintegrated and it's only a question of how much, if any, will remain by end of melt season
 o the Atlantic side has so far lasted better than I had expected. The ice volume models say it was only relatively thin first year ice, and the Atlantic Ocean appears to have been transporting more heat than usual to the ice. My guess is that much of it will finally disintegrate over the rest of August.
 o the storm is predicted to be sitting right over the ice sanctuary off the Canadian Arctic coast. If that happens then how much will it disperse the ice? Surely all those gaps would be bad news for the integrity of the sanctuary ice pack over the 2017 melt season even if not this one.

It's going to be a very exciting August for Arctic ice watchers.

budmantis

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3895 on: August 11, 2016, 07:58:33 AM »
966 millibars, very impressive!

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3896 on: August 11, 2016, 08:00:18 AM »
Gacky

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3897 on: August 11, 2016, 08:17:58 AM »
I think Neven said that GAC IN 2012 had a minimum pressure of 963-964 hpa...

Adam Ash

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3898 on: August 11, 2016, 10:49:03 AM »
So the follow up question to this combination of unhappy climatic coincidences could be: -
The 2012 ice conditions screwed atmospheric circulation to produce the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge and its fellows with dire impacts (particularly on North America); What then is in store for us when the sea ice retreats further than it did in 2012?

Neven

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Re: The 2016 melting season
« Reply #3899 on: August 11, 2016, 11:32:22 AM »
There is no way that the 2012 record is going to be broken, but this is getting close to GAC-2012 levels, at least with regards to intensity, perhaps not longevity. I think all that ice in the ESS zone that I talked about last week is going to go now. This increases the chances of this year ending up second. Very exciting, as huge storms always are.





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