Vote with your guts - And if... ?

[DungeonMaster]

Hi all,

I've been thinking about such a poll for some time... Let's see what comes out !

Please play the game, close your eyes and imagine that in september most ice has disappeared. How big would be your "Wow" ?

[DungeonMaster]

And yes, I'd be horrified, but alas, not surprised... Voted #1

Your turn !

[ritter]

And yes, I'd be horrified, but alas, not surprised...

This gets my vote. I'm not certain, but I have a bad feeling.

[johnm33]

I'll take july 25th earliest.

[ChrisReynolds]

Zero chance. 

On the proviso we're not talking under 1M km^2 for CT Area, which is feasible.

But a sea ice free ocean, or under 1M km^2 extent, or under 0.5M km^2 CT Area? Not going to happen.

If it does I'll quit blogging on sea ice. That's a promise.

[Neven]

If it does I'll quit blogging on sea ice. That's a promise.

Me too. I'm stopping 100% when the ice is gone, if only for the added effect. 

[DungeonMaster]

Hey Neven and Chris, I can imagine loosing the ice, but I can't imagine loosing you !!

I'm going to consider removing this poll. 

... But I do note that Neven didn't vote "No way"...

[Neven]

... But I do note that Neven didn't vote "No way"...

Nothing in the Arctic is a dead certainty. But I have a lot of trust in Chris Reynolds and whatever he's saying, so if I'd really have make a choice, I'd say: this year won't see an ice-free Arctic.

[OldLeatherneck]

If it happens this year, Neven will be wind-surfing at the North Pole, before I'm in my grave, and I don't have that many years left. (15-20 at most).

More Seriously;

If it happens this year, coupled with a few extreme weather events, I suggest that we all commit to redoubling our efforts, inidvidually and collectively, to inform and influence politicians and policymakers, locally, regionally and globally.

If it happens this year, every projection of AGW/CC related impacts must be completely ignored because things are happening much faster than even the worst-case scenarios currently envisioned.

[birthmark]

"Quite a bit, but..." I certainly won't accuse anyone of exaggeration. This is a unique event. Perspectives will differ based on different information and, since you mention it, gut feelings.

[Dromicosuchus]

Personally, my guess is for an extent equal to the 2012 minimum +- 1 million km^2.  I don't think it's impossible that it could dip lower than that, but I would be very much surprised.

[Gray-Wolf]

Lap of the Gods? If , due to ice loss, we see the perfect storm syn optic alter it's 10 to 20yr cycle then 'who knows?'

We know the ice is in a poor state but a high export/high melt year? look what 'average' summers have been giving us?

If lasy years low ice promotes an even more convoluted Jet then we could end up with a 'perfect storm' and WAA stuck over critical sea areas.

Time to let go and see what will be?

[AndrewP]

A couple years ago I would have said impossible, now it's hard to know what will happen next. I'd give it a 1 or 2% chance, if we're talking about CT_Area. We'd have to lose way more volume than has ever been lost before in one summer.

I don't think there's a poll option that really represents this sentiment.

[Donald]

Well, it seems that I am with the majority of you guys (who mostly know a lot more than I do).

[Glenn Tamblyn]

2013 seems too soon, even with a significant volume decline. 2 million km^2 this year? Maybe.

I would have said more like 2014, 2015. And completely ice free in September will be some years after that - there will be remnants for a while.

[James Lovejoy]

Well thanks, after demonstrating my lack of forecasting in the maximum area contest, I get to show it again.

I voted "not really".  I'd take an even money bet for say 1 day's beer money that area is going below 2012's.  For it to go below 1 million a lot of things have to break against the ice.  But its not so low probability that I'd be suprised.  What would suprise me is if we don't get below 1 m k min area by the early 2020's.

[icebgone]

I am not surprised that the Arctic ice is facing a potential meltdown this year.  After the 2005 season I told my daughter that I would estimate the chances of Arctic melt out by Labor Day 2013 at 50%.  Recently, I altered my original date to 2017 but now?  Whether this gets postponed by a few years I think the final outcome remains the same.  We must, must phase out 90-100% of carbon energy use before 2050 or face an unthinkable future.

[Pmt111500]

i'll say the remaining pack may detach from the CAA (Canadian Arctic Archipelago, for newcomers) and most of Greenland coasts, it became awfully close last year, but that it'll remain over the limit set by the pollster.

[Mark Tough]

I've been a lurker on this site for far too long. Time to say it's brilliant and I'm blown away by the contributors knowledge, vision, tenacity and most of all humanity. It's about being brave enough to call it as you see it and welcome challenge, occasional derision but most of all constructive criticism in the purest sense of the phrase - there's only ever a dash of ego on the site (like chili - you need a bit) and of course I can only marvel at the insight, patience and countless hours of work from Neven to pull it all together.

Right got that covered - now for my prediction! I'm with the mob and go for a few years (second answer). We are in a time of massive change and yes, in the main it's about the loss of multi year ice but I think there's still too much volume left for a 2013 minimum under 1m. That said this is a normal (can we use that word anymore) year, we're in La Nada so no great 2007 fluctuation to drive that extra loss, if that were to change all bets would be off.

It will be a very interesting few months ahead and I do believe firmly that dipping below 1m Ice Extent and Mauna Loa rocketing above 400 ppm CO2 will be key milestones on our ecological journey. Deniers will be stand out like a proverbial "Shag on a rock" they will not appear mainstream and the eloquence of the ASIB and ASIF contributors, amongst others, will help shine light for a populace that I believe do want to replace dogma with a new dawn of science. Keep educating - the journos and commentators will follow.

Keep on keeping on Boys and Girls - you are doing a fine job.

PS - I'm a Sydneysider who came to these sites via SKS. It's a top line Australian climate site, I'm sure most of you are aware of John Cook and his mythbusting cohorts, if not check it out.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

The Bureau of Meteorology in Oz also have a fortnightly ENSO update also worth a look if, like me, you feel it can have an amplifying effect on the melt. (not this year perhaps)

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

[Juan C. García]

This doesn’t sound like a poll
More like an official bet
Are the cracks so bad?
I choose “not really, but…” I hope it won’t.

[DungeonMaster]

Well it's not about your bet, more about "Do you think it may happen?" I'm pretty sure that answers would have been totally different 5 or 3 years ago - or even last year. It seems less and less impossible. Go on saying with it would / wouldn't surprise you !

[ivica]

...I don't think there's a poll option that really represents this sentiment.

I'm in between 2 & 3. Coin in the air...

[Artful Dodger]

A great unknown will be answered in the next month. Is the MYI pack ice mobile? Animations like the quality work done by A-Team over at the 'blog will tell us.

If MYI has truly joined the gyre, it's all over in 3 years. Or possibly sooner with optimal melt conditions. Or much sooner with another 'black swan' GAC2013.

If the MYI isn't mobile, then not much has changed, and the slow plodding death spiral to the 2020s continues.

But I'll renew my prediction right now: The MYI is headed South to die either in the Beaufort Gryndre, or the East Greenland Graveyard.

Whether it be this year or in 3 years don't matter a wit. Because we'll still be addicted to those fossil mushrooms, all while denying it to our parents like misbehaving school kids.

No laddies (and lassies), the REAL fight will be to keep the WINTER sea ice. And we have precious little time to do that. Beyond that lie dragons.

[anonymous]

I'll go with zero, because there is still too much ice to melt. But export is a known unknown. So far changing winds force sea ice to do the random walk, which keeps it in the basin. If a strong dipole establishes in May and stays for month, well, then I'll book Svalbard in September to see the last floe escaping.

However, the NSIDC will then still report sea ice found in the Atlantic.

[Jim Williams]

I wouldn't be surprised.  I've taken the aggressive stand all year about 2013 and see no reason to change.  Now, reality is that 2013 isn't all that likely to be the year -- but our understanding of the systematics isn't very good and it's really rather likely there will be a sudden and complete collapse of sea ice.  That's generally how systems change state -- suddenly.  The hard question is when.

[ChrisReynolds]

Mark Tough,

Welcome to the forum. I didn't realise SKS was Aussie, but it is IMO the best climate science site on the net, even beating Realclimate.

The climate science site with the most traffic is of course the internet's biggest collection of village idiots. A positive side of a rapid transition to seasonally sea ice free state is we get to rub their noses in it. 

Neven,
Thanks. 

[Peter Ellis]

Zero chance. 

Are you talking about daily minimum or September average?  Personally I don't think we'll see a daily minimum below 1 million till the latter half of this decade, but with perfect synoptics I don't think it's impossible. The NSIDS September average won't drop below 1 million for many years yet.

Moreover, the nearer we get to complete melt out, the more significant the difference between extent and area will become.  Finally, the details of how you calculate the average September extent will also become more and more significant: do you do the spatial averaging before the temporal averaging, or vice versa?

[ChrisReynolds]

Peter,

Daily. September average isn't even worth discussing for this decade. But I should have made it clear.

I really think we need some serious winter thinning before a day below 1M km^2/0.5M km^2 (extent/area) is possible, even with the enhanced spring melt and decreased albedo due to predominant first year ice.

[DungeonMaster]

If / when it happens... we'll be in such a shock that it won't matter if it's daily (this poll) or monthly anyway.

Can one of of our Graphics Guru create some preview image, with ice mainly North of Greenland and Canada ? I can hardly imagine how small it would be.

[ChrisReynolds]

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8099/8580271553_43440e3598_o.jpg

The long edge is 2000km along the CAA, the large triangle is 1000km into the ocean, making two right angled triangles; total area 1M km^2.

[Espen]

Chris;

Another triangle?
Yes I think we will be below that, in 2 max. 3 years.

[Vergent]

Great poll!

Since 2008, I have been predicting 2013-14, based on the changes in the forecasts from "ice free in 100 years" in 2002 to "ice free in 50 years" in 2008. It became clear that the models were under predicting the changes in the arctic by a factor of ten. Predictions since then have hugged that line.



Its like the gas law you have to correct the ideal law by multiplying by a factor, the gas constant. We could call this factor a "Vergent" Symbolized by a V. V= 0.1. Multiply model based "Years to ice free"*V = actual years to ice free. Doing so makes all the model based predictions over the last 11 years consistent, but then we are going ice free this year or next.

V

[Laurent]

In 2007 I started to wonder what is going on in the arctic, the scientist were saying that it would melt in 2100 ; that's was something like very far the people around me but for me it was just like a glimpse and was horrifying by the prospect, then I decided to stop listening and try to find the data's.
In 2007, I found a graph of the sea ice area that was showing me a complete melting around 2013 (2012 included), though today I do not rely anymore on the surface data's, a complete melting this summer become possible, ouhaou...
Our nations are maintained because they spend a lot of energy to make the people working, sustain them...very soon the social contract will break, while watching the arctic melting we should discuss this eventuality and begin to act really to decrease the co2. I personally think that there is no technical solution to decrease the CO2 we have to plant trees everywhere ! For that we need a tool like face-book but something that does connect them locally, something with a map that will show the people with the same interest (drupal, home building, plants, arctic...)

[ChrisReynolds]

Espen,

But look at all the blue water between that and the CAA, in reality 1M km^2 would be a good bit closer to land.

I just can't believe people think we can drop to below 1M extent or 0.5M area this year, even for one day. 

[Sigmetnow]

The climate is no longer following the old rules.   Hotter temperatures,  stronger storms,  El Niño collapse  -- earlier, “unprecedented,” Arctic sea ice breakup.

So much going on that we still don’t fully understand.  (Methane melting?)  And the “trend of trends” I’m seeing is worse, not better.  So, I will not be at all surprised if Arctic sea ice hits less than 1 mkm this year.

[Ice Cool Kim]

Does anyone know where the actual data can be found?

I'm not talking about maps, graphs and video simulations.

All I can find is Cryo Today's ice area "anomaly" .  They seem to provide a hundred ways to visualise the data but are a bit shy about giving us the numbers.

Even on their main page the link to the "archive" which I think used to lead to the anomaly data is broken and returns garbage. (Thought the old URL still works if you are lucky enough to know it).

I hate this kind of jiving around, I wish they'd just post a link to the data.

So if any of you clever chaps knows where anyone has a data download for daily ice area
please chip in.

NB. I'm looking for daily, not monthly and full area not "anomaly".

Thanks for any help.
 

[crandles]

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008

(Edit: 1st column is date, second column anomaly, third is actual area, 4th is normal for day of year from 1979-2008.

HTH)

Antarctic and global also linked fron Nevens graph page:
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/

[Ice Cool Kim]

Damn, I already had it and did not realise!

There's not header info in that file so I didn't realise.
 
Many thanks.

[TerryM]

I voted the 3d option


The sentiments expressed aren't mine. Those that opted for the 1st or 2nd choice are looking at a very complex problem from a slightly different perspective.


The CAA last year went from being a refuge for MYI to being a graveyard and I don't think we'll ever see 2012 levels again. MYI now has to delicately balance north of Greenland or north of Ellesmere Island without falling into Fram, Nares or now the CAA if it expects to have another spin round the Gyre.


PII2012 could remain lodged in Kane Basin disrupting advection through Nares Strait. IIRC PII2012 still has a fair ways to go before it reaches deep waters. I'm sure many of us will be following this as the seasons progress.


If we see a strong -AO in spring and early summer, followed by a +AO with Ekman Pumping stirring things up while low fog banks are keeping the heat in it's possible we could lose everything, but I think we still have too much volume for this to be likely.


Terry

[Ice Cool Kim]

Hmm , look like CT are having trouble dealing with leap years

 awk '(( FNR==3347)||( FNR==3348)) {print $1 " " $3}' timeseries.anom.1979-2008
1988.1644 14.6043444
1988.1644 14.6512089

Seem to recall having hit this before. Had to do some clumsy manual editing to remove one of the dupe dates. Not sure what ice area to keep.

Hmm, there's four or five other one-off dates that have similar dupes.

[Neven]

Kim, you can find more daily and monthly data on the ASIG (Arctic Sea Ice Graphs) page, in the right-hand column on top with links.

[crandles]

Hmm , look like CT are having trouble dealing with leap years

 awk '(( FNR==3347)||( FNR==3348)) {print $1 " " $3}' timeseries.anom.1979-2008
1988.1644 14.6043444
1988.1644 14.6512089

Seem to recall having hit this before. Had to do some clumsy manual editing to remove one of the dupe dates. Not sure what ice area to keep.

Hmm, there's four or five other one-off dates that have similar dupes.

It is always in a leap year, so don't discard any area data just redo the dates to include 29th feb. Timing varies but this is just when they realise there is an extra day in the year.

[Ice Cool Kim]

Thanks for the helpful comments. I'll dig into it.

Looking at NSIDC graph I'd say the next minor peak will be around 29th March. Just depends which way the wind blows as to whether this will make it as the winter max. or it whether it's already hit.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

To answer my own question the lunar cycles are 10 or 11 days earlier this year so that does look like a lunar driven cycle on top of the annual variation.

[Ice Cool Kim]

crandles: It is always in a leap year, so don't discard any area data just redo the dates to include 29th feb.

Yes, but how could I do that? They have the whole file with floating point date values that seem to have been miscalculated.

I'd need to back-engineer their mistake in order to correct it.

 

[crandles]

Yes, but how could I do that? They have the whole file with floating point date values that seem to have been miscalculated.

If you have 366 area values in a leap year that appear to be in order, what is difficult about assigning dates to those values?

[Ice Cool Kim]

Thanks,

yes, if it was just that it would be simpler.

However there a dupes also at
### 2007.9808
### 2008.4438
### 2009.4274

No idea where that comes from.

[Neven]

How about taking this to the CT SIA thread or open a new one (perhaps in the Developers Corner)?

[Gray-Wolf]

The US Navy charts hint at the remnant multiyear lurching off it's greenland coastsal contact last week?

I first saw , and worried about such behaviour in the 07' melt animation where the late Aug images seemed to suggest the Ice had disconnected from the Greenland shore. The losses last summer along the north coast , and the rapid thinning of the sea ice there trough Aug, had me concerned that this last refuge could go walkabout given enough open water and favourable winds/curent flow.

I changed my mind from the 'Laptev Bite spliting this ice into 2 destroyable chunks to a floatoff and mangeling at the hands of a GAC12 type cyclone (or two?).

After seeing it jolt north this week I wonder whether this year may see a combination of both with a floatoff bringing the ice into the melt forcing that has caused the Laptev bite these past years?

As such I cannot muster the confidence that Chris R has about not seeing a catastrophic collapse of this ice over the next few seasons?

With the bigger part of this remnant gone a sub 1 million must be even more of a potential?

[ChrisReynolds]

Gray Wolf,

1) Is there really any precedent for such a large mass of ice making such a fast progress into the Beaufort / Siberian Regions such that it will be guaranteed to melt out? I don't think so.

2) Thickness levels aren't much down on 2011/2012. Volume is slightly above 2012 same time. Spring volume loss 2012 was the steepest so far, this year will be steeper. April Avg minus Jun Avg gives losses of 6 to 7k km^3 post 2010, and 4 to 5k km^3 pre-2010, 2012 was the greatest loss at 7.03k km^3. However June to Sept losses pre 2010 were of the order of 12 to 13k km^3, post 2010 they have been between 11 and 12k km^3 - i.e. while spring melt has grown by around 2k km^3, later summer losses have dropped by around 1k km^3, making a net increase of 1k km^3 loss throughout the melt season.

So what volume does 1M km^2 extent mean? Well extent is a crap metric, how much area is 1M km^2 extent? For 2012 August Dispersion Index was around 1.6, that's NSIDC EXtent / CT Area.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54059206@N07/8581338180/#
so 1M extent / 1.6 => 0.625M area.

At a finishing thickness for Sept of around 1.1m in 2012: 0.0011*625,000 ~ 700 km^3, lets round that further in your favour and say it only has to get down to 1k km^3. Which gives a closely compacted pack of 1M extent with thickness 1m, any low concentration areas mean you need to lose more volume to get to 1M extent. Given that daily min volume 2012 was 3.261k km^3, this year would need to lose 2.261k km^3 below last year's minimum.

So this year needs to lose 2.2k km^3 more than last year did from max to min volume in order to get to 1M km^2 extent. That's taking into account the extra 1k km^3 spring melt that's already happened due to more FYI since 2010.

Short of a massive meteor impact on the pack, 1M is not possible.

[DungeonMaster]

How about taking this to the CT SIA thread or open a new one (perhaps in the Developers Corner)?

+1, I think this discussion deserves a topic on its own.