I realized that it may be difficult for our new readers to understand most of abbreviations used here. So I suggest making a glossary !
For more terms you can refer to
NSIDC's Glossary. Or peruse the Global Cryosphere Watch
Glossary (4141 entries from 26 sources; over 2200 are unique).
Please add terms and definitions below, I'll try to compile them in this first message (except the jokes). Please also provide links when you can.
An other Glossary is available for Antarctic hereABW - Arctic bottom water
AMO - Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
AMOC - Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
AMSR - Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer
AO - Arctic Oscillation
ASI - Arctic Sea Ice - all the Ice floating in the Arctic Seas.
ASIB -
Arctic Sea Ice BlogASIF - Arctic Sea Ice Forum
ASIG -
Arctic Sea Ice Graphs pageAW - Atlantic water
AWI - Alfred Wegener Institute, an important research center in Germany
AWP - Albedo-Warming Potential
BOE - Blue Ocean Event
BS - Bering Strait (or when someone is talking nonsense) (or
Blog Science)
CAA - Canadian Arctic Archipelago - Canadian islands in the North of America: Ellesmere, Victoria, Baffin and many others, except Greenland. CAA main waterways include the PGAS, Peary Channel, Amundsen Gulf, McClintock Channel and Gulf of Boothia.
CAB - Central Arctic Basin, the central part of the Arctic Ocean, bordering the CAA, Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev, Kara, Barents and Greenland seas. It has several definitions of borders, mainly a smaller CAB (NSIDC/MASIE maps) or larger CAB (CT/Wipneus maps) versions, depending on demarcations with the other seas. It includes the Lincoln Sea and the Wandel Sea.
CAPIE - Cryosphere Today area per IJIS extent (crude melt pond and compactness measure)
CB -
Century break, a drop of more than 100K (one hundred thousand) km2 in sea ice area or extent
CIS -
Canadian Ice ServiceCONUS - Continental (or contiguous, or conterminous) U.S., meaning the 48 states, not including Alaska
CR - Climate Reanalyzer
CT -
Cryosphere Today, a now-defunct website
DJF - December January February - winter (Meteorological calendar, northern hemisphere)
DLR - Downwelling Longwave (infra-red) Radiation
DMI - Danish Meteorological Institute
DRA - Data release area, the previously top secret US Navy submarine data showing measured thickness of sea ice. Released to scientists in 1992 by then Vice President of the US Al Gore.
DTC - Digital Temperature (or Thermistor) Chain, in the context of ice mass balance buoys
DTR - Diurnal Temperature Range - the difference between daily max and min temperatures.
EAIS - East Antarctic Ice Sheet
ECMWF (AKA Euro) - European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
EEI - Earth energy imbalance, the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth and the amount of energy the planet radiates to space as heat.
ENSO - El Nino Southern Oscillation
EPO - Eastern Pacific Oscillation
ESAS - East Siberian Arctic Shelf
ESS - East Siberian Sea
FDD - Freezing Degree Days. Sum of temps in C below freezing. Provides integrated intensity of cold.
FJL - Franz Josef Land, a group of islands to the east of Svalbard
FRIS - Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, Atlantic part of WAIS (Filchner the eastern outlet, Ronne the western by the peninsula (both having gently sloping submarine outlets)
FYI - First-year ice
GAC - Great Arctic Cyclone
GAAC - Great Arctic Anti-Cyclone (result of persistent high pressure)
GCM - General Circulation Model, or Global Climate Model. The sort of model used to make IPCC temperature projections.
GFS - Global Forecast System (US weather forecast model)
gice - One of the PIOMAS output files, containing the distribution of thicknesses in each grid cell
GIS - Greenland Ice Sheet
HFO - Heavy fuel oil
High Arctic - "hard to melt" arctic seas, including the CAB, CAA, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, ESS, Laptev Sea, Kara Sea
hPa - hectopascal, a unit of pressure
ICESat - Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite. The precursor to CryoSat 2, used to validate PIOMAS
IJIS - IARC-JAXA Information System run by the International Arctic Research Center (IARC), University of Alaska, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
IMB - Ice Mass Balance buoy
IS - Ice stream
JAXA - Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency
JIS - Jakobshavn Isbrae (or Ice Stream)
JJA - June July August - summer (Meteorological calendar, northern hemisphere)
LFO - Light fuel oil
MAM - March April May - spring (Meteorological calendar, northern hemisphere)
MIZ - Marginal Ice Zone
MSLP - Mean Sea Level Pressure
MYI - Multi-Year Ice
NAO - North Atlantic Oscillation
NAVGEM - Navy Global Environmental Model
NEW - Northeast Water Polynya
NH - Northern Hemisphere.
NEGIS - North-East Greenland Ice Stream
NOW - North Water Polynya
NP - North Pole
NSR - Northern Sea Route
NWP - North West Passage
OLR - Outgoing Longwave (infra-red) Radiation
OMG - Oceans are Melting Greenland
OSISAF - Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility
OWFE - Open Water Formation Efficiency. A measure of the melt season thinning that leads to a percentage of open water in the Arctic ocean.
PAC - Persistent Arctic Cyclone
PDO - Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Peripheral Seas - "easy to melt" arctic seas - Sea of Okhotsk, Bering Sea, Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay, Gulf of St. Lawernce, Greenland Sea, Barents Sea
PGAS - Prince Gustav Adolf Sea, in the CAA bordering the CAB
PICT - PIOMAS volume per Cryosphere Today area (crude average thickness measure)
PIG - Pine Island Glacier, Blocking one specific steep and deep outlet of WAIS below sea level, and the other sensitive outlet nearby is Thwaites glacier.
PIJAMAS - PIOMAS volume per JAXA sea ice extent (crude average thickness measure)
PIOMAS -
Pan Arctic Ice Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System.
PNA - Pacific North American pattern
PSC - Polar Science Center, University of Washington (PIOMAS)
PV - Polar Vortex
QBO - Quasi Biennial Oscillation
RILE - Rapid Ice Loss Event. An event where area or extent shows marked drops faster than the long term trend, these can take years to play out in the models and rarely end with a totally ice free Arctic.
RIS - Ross Ice Shelf, Pacific part of WAIS (with at least 3 gently sloping submarine outlets)
SAT - Surface air temperature
SFW - Stratospheric Final Warming
SH - Southern Hemisphere.
SIA - Sea ice area
SIC - Sea ice concentration
SIE - Sea ice extent
SIMB - Seasonal Ice Mass Balance buoy
SIT - Sea ice thickness
SIV - Sea ice volume
SLP - Sea level pressure
SMB - Surface mass balance
SMOS - Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, ESA satellite
SOI - Southern Oscillation Index
SON - September October November - autumn (Meteorological calendar, northern hemisphere)
SoO - Sea of Okhotsk
SST - Sea surface temperature
SSTa - Sea surface temperature anomaly
SSW - Sudden Stratospheric Warming
SW - ShortWave radiation - sunlight otherwise known as insolation.
SWE - Snow Water Equivalent
TDD - Thawing Degree Days. Sum of temps in C above freezing. Provides integrated intensity of warmth.
THC - Thermohaline Circulation
TPV - Tropopause Polar Vortex
TPW - Total Precipitable Water
UKMO - United Kingdom Meteorological Office
WAA - Warm Air Advection
WACC - Warm Arctic, Cold Continents
WAIS - The whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet
WIPD - Whole ice pack detachment
ZIS - Zachariae Isstrom (or Ice Stream)