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romett1

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2150 on: January 24, 2017, 11:19:05 PM »
A-Team's recent animation explains it all - no green or yellow near Beaufort anymore (3 - 3.5 m thick ice), barely 1 - 1.5 m left instead. I compared 23 January 2017 vs same date 2016. Yes, there is more green near Svalbard, unfortunately labeled "export only". I guess it needs to be clicked again.

NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2151 on: January 25, 2017, 12:21:46 AM »
Volume may be falling, time will tell.

But Extent is most certainly not.  This is going to make for a most interesting spring melt as the ice is thin, fractured and interspersed with large areas of open water which is warmer than it should be.

But it still has more room to grow in Extent and it's not stopping.  Even if it is just blowing the broken stuff around, it will eventually freeze between the ice by March in most areas.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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idunno

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2152 on: January 25, 2017, 02:02:04 AM »
I think that there is a (remote) possibility that the recent export of thick solid ice into the Fram Strait and the vicinity of Svarlsbard could lead to a recovery of extent and volume, as follows...

There seemed to be no hope of the sea freezing over around North Svarlsbard. Now thick ice is blown there, there is thick ice there.

That ice came from the Lincoln Sea and the area round the Pole. Those are ice-forming regions, where open water will not survive long, and will increase in thickness and volume far quicker (it will grow from 0 to 100 cms thick far easier than it would add the same additional volume growing from 200 to 300cm thickness, because ice insulates the seawater below it from the much colder air above it).

So a couple of weeks of normal SATs at any point from now to April could result in a decent covering of ice a metre or two thick in the export zone (Lincoln Sea to the Pole), with additional ice recently exported from there, and still clinging on as unmelted ice in the Greenland Sea and around the North of Svarlsbard.

I am not at all convinced of this, just throwing it out as a maybe.

In any case, if this is the case it could make for a very unpredictable melting season in this sector. Normally the ice's defences against liquid water incursions involve a stronghold of tough multi yr ice, surrounded by weaker first year ice. This year, we may have more of a doughnut-shaped defensive position, with the strongest forces deployed at the perimetre, defending a weak centre.

This could go either way. If the thick MYI in the Greenland Sea impedes Atlantic Water forcing its way North effectively enough, little damage will be done either in the Greenland Sea, or in the more effectively protecteded central pack. Or there could be a flash melt, with the Southern-lying multi year ice too close to harm's way to survive, and the Central Arctic first year ice, just too weak.

My hunch is that the second of these possibilities is more likely; but the first does perhaps exist.

CognitiveBias

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2153 on: January 25, 2017, 02:11:15 AM »
I think the SST near Svarlsbard tell the story of what will happen to ice imported there....

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-74.95,86.88,558/loc=6.139,77.533

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2154 on: January 25, 2017, 03:50:31 AM »
I think that there is a (remote) possibility that the recent export of thick solid ice into the Fram Strait and the vicinity of Svarlsbard could lead to a recovery of extent and volume, as follows...
I fear, idunno, your hope is made of smoke.

CognitiveBias presented the first monkeywrench in the machinery of your thought.

Here's a couple more.

1) Freezing rate.  The rate at which ice thickens drops off radically as it thickens.  This is a mechanism of the "R" value - the constraint - on the heat flow through the ice itself.  The first 50CM will happen pretty fast - within a week to 10 days, if temperatures are low enough - and by that, I mean at least -20C.  After that, you will at best get a couple of CM a day if conditions are right.  So right there, counting the days, assuming pretty much perfect weather for it, the best thickness you're going to be able to hope for is going to be between 1.0 and 1.25M +/- a little.  Further note, you will need the *rest* of the season to have undisturbed normal temperatures to get to this thickness.  If the cold is interrupted by storms and heat, it will never even get close.

2) Thickness vs survivability.  At some point, I recall seeing that in a given *typical* year, the melt season will on average chew through about 1.85M of ice.  Following that metric pretty much any ice formed this late will be gone well before August.

3) Current flow.  MYI in the Greenland Sea will have zero effect slowing warm flow from the south.  That all happens many meters below the sea surface.

4) Time.  Sunrise at 80N arrives in a little over 4 weeks.  Incoming insolation ramps up rapidly from there and while the over-all 80N temps don't start to trend up seriously for another 5 weeks, what starts arriving, in the presence of so much open water is plenty to change the freezing equation.  Even with pretty optimal conditions, open water created now really won't have enough time to get even to 1M of thickness.

So, sorry to rain on your parade, but I fear the forces of physics are not with you.
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epiphyte

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2155 on: January 25, 2017, 06:37:28 AM »
Quote
very interesting article Please ignore it
Yes, safe to ignore. Paleoclimate is a very complex interdisciplinary subject, the young author is not a college graduate.

Without opining on the merits of the argument at hand, I'm not certain that Albert Einstein had even ascended to the level of patent clerk at his age. Sometimes it's easier to see the forest when you aren't mired in the undergrowth beneath the trees...

budmantis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2156 on: January 25, 2017, 06:59:24 AM »
It would be great to see any "recovery" this freezing season. Unless there is a radical change in the weather for the remainder of the freezing season, it is unlikely at best to happen.

oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2157 on: January 25, 2017, 07:27:59 AM »
idunno, extent could go up temporarily and perhaps even volume, though the hot soup next to Svalbard has proven very resilient this year. But from an annual point of view exporting the thick ice to its certain doom on the Atlantic side is a big negative and will increase the probability of a record min this year, as the new 1m ice will not hold back anything, while the Atlantic side is fed by a warm current and can melt any ice in its path.
Had the export been to the colder and more protected Beaufort instead, things could have been different.
The recent export through the Bering is also different, as there the exported ice was mostly FYI, thereby losing a weaker asset and in return getting more new growth in the exporting areas (Chukchi, Beaufort, ESS) and more protection from spring insolation in the receiving area (Bering). So a more or less balanced result or even somewhat positive.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2158 on: January 25, 2017, 11:13:38 AM »
I've always warned, since at least 08', to not pay any mind to ice outside of the basin as it will all be gone by the end of May.

It is the basin that is important and this 'new' evolution of mobile ice roaming over warmed sectors of the basin makes it even more important that we have thick, older, expansive ice so as to limit such impacts. As it is we have seen some late formed FY ice now in Beaufort/ESS just ripe for early melt out and so warmed coastal strips early on in the season.

The Atlantic side is seeing forcing to break apart the pack so it will end up in small floes by high insolation over the basin ( many floes less than the magic 100m so top,bottom and side melt become important).
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2159 on: January 25, 2017, 12:15:56 PM »
Quote
post discussions about paleo climates and big picture stuff in other threads
Paleo and synoptic have interest per se but are indeed too far afield from the current refreezing season (this forum). The failure of climate models to explain Arctic amplification (despite decades of research and huge longterm data sets) proves that fundamental pieces of the puzzle are not understood. Paleo affirms that previous episodes of relatively warm high northern latitudes ('equable climate') cannot be understood from C02 levels and tropical ocean temperatures alone but we knew that already — it’s in our face every day.

Quote
The tipping point for the Arctic occurred at exactly 11 minutes after midnight on a Friday because of a black swan event on 01 Jan 2016. It’s that simple.
Winter storms, large and small, that bring in extra-tropical heat and moisture are understood today as critical contributors to Arctic ice conditions (after reversing earlier gospel about net radiative effects). However these storms are not new — they’re listed by date, duration, and hPa in the refs below — though possibly their frequency or extremity is trending upward. Alternatively, their impact is increasing via synergy with downward trending ice conditions, eg strong winds stir open water to greater depth and cause more mechanical damage to thinner ice.

In any event, it now seems winter is in the driver’s seat. Arctic amplification is timed oppositely from melt season — that’s mostly when we learn the car is in the ditch.

The epic 29-31 Dec 2015 storm event you mention has been discussed here a half dozen times already  [Boisvert 2016, Moore 2016] along with six major spring storms unique in their massive in situ documentation (N-ICE 2015). A third paper on that 928 hPa storm has just appeared. Low as that sounds, this was only 4th lowest in the last twenty years of North Atlantic windstorms, though the extremity and duration of its Arctic warming impact was record-setting (58 winter seasons 1958-2015):

Braer   13 Jan 1993  913 hPa
Noname  15 Dec 1986  916 hPa
Dirk    24 Dec 2013  927 hPA
Frank   30 Dec 2015  928 hPa
Vivian  28 Feb 1990  940 hPa

29 Dec 2015 — 06 Feb 2016  40 days
25 Jan 2014 - 17 Feb 2014  24 days
30 Jan 2012 - 20 Feb 2012  22 days
02 Jan 1977 - 20 Jan 1977  19 days
28 Nov 2007 - 16 Dec 2007  19 days


None of these storms have any discernible connection to sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events affecting the Polar Vortex; the SSW are listed and animated here:

http://birner.atmos.colostate.edu/ssw.html

http://p-martineau.com/ssw-animations/

It would be interesting however to monitor Arctic effects of the SSW that J Cohen predicts (on 23 Jan 17) for the next two weeks: https://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

Major cause of unprecedented Arctic warming in January 2016: Critical role of an Atlantic windstorm
BM Kim et al  04 Jan 17
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep40051 free full text, easy read

"In January 2016, the Arctic experienced an extremely anomalous warming event after an extraordinary increase in air temperature at the end of 2015. During this event, a strong intrusion of warm and moist air and an increase in downward longwave radiation, as well as a loss of sea ice in the Barents and Kara seas, were observed.

Observational analyses revealed that the abrupt warming was triggered by the entry of a strong Atlantic windstorm into the Arctic in late December 2015, which brought enormous moist and warm air masses to the Arctic. Although the storm terminated at the eastern coast of Greenland in late December, it was followed by a prolonged blocking period in early 2016 that sustained the extreme Arctic warming.

Numerical experiments indicate that the warming effect of sea ice loss and associated upward turbulent heat fluxes are relatively minor in this event. This result suggests the synoptically driven warm and moist air intrusion into the Arctic was a primary contributing factor of this extreme Arctic warming event....

Despite the importance of the Arctic state for the adjacent mid-latitudes, the major cause of Arctic warming remains a controversial issue. The following factors have been suggested:

1) surface reflectivity of snow and ice

2) oceanic heat loss by surface turbulent heat fluxes

3) incoming longwave radiation emitted by water vapor and clouds

4) surface thermal inversion

5) atmospheric lapse-rate

6) poleward atmospheric energy transport by moisture intrusion

The anomalous warm temperature was maintained during the entire month of January, which produced a record anomalous Arctic-mean temperature. In particular, the SAT locally increased to the extreme value of approximately 30 °C higher than normal in January over the Eurasian Arctic sector.

This event appeared to be super-extreme in the sense that no warming event had developed as rapidly as this event or maintained for such a long period. This case is unprecedented over the available period of modern data...."

Maybe so, but for how long? And how does it compare to cumulative impacts from a steady train of smaller storms bring in extratropical warmth and moisture? How does this storm -- and ones this season -- manifest itself on our favorite products such as nullschool, SMOS, AMSR2, Jaxa, Hycom etc?
« Last Edit: January 25, 2017, 01:31:30 PM by A-Team »

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2160 on: January 25, 2017, 01:39:12 PM »
You can really see the concentration going down in other parts of the Arctic and especially the ESS, as subtle winds push ice through the Bering Strait. It is a slow process, but steady and it is starting to seem like a relentless pattern. Also, while some of the ice is mobilized in this way, would that not cause upwelling, which not only degrades the ice there in both thickness and concentration, but hinders new ice from forming and existing ice from thickening? The waters just off the Siberian shores never really cooled entirely anyway, so it would not take much to stir these up.
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magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2161 on: January 25, 2017, 01:46:41 PM »
Quote
very interesting article Please ignore it
Yes, safe to ignore. Paleoclimate is a very complex interdisciplinary subject, the young author is not a college graduate.

Without opining on the merits of the argument at hand, I'm not certain that Albert Einstein had even ascended to the level of patent clerk at his age. Sometimes it's easier to see the forest when you aren't mired in the undergrowth beneath the trees...

thanks, i was reluctant but to discard any argument because someone has no degree or similar is not a valid standpoint. looking back in history at many of the greates names, there were not even universities at the time and very often those who came up with really ground braking new stuff were laymen, good observers, dedicated with no limits and at times just lucky.

specializing in certain fields gives often the best knowledge in that field but makes many of those experts loose the feel or sight of the big picture which is exactly why mankind ended where it is now. each expert can very well explain from HIS point of view what solution is best and why an idea is good but then put into a holistic context many if not most of those solutions not only fail but do more damage than good.

one of my current books in the pipeline is exactly about over specialization and the lack of institutions that put every input coming from niches into the a  more holistic context.

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2162 on: January 25, 2017, 02:28:40 PM »
I've always warned, since at least 08', to not pay any mind to ice outside of the basin as it will all be gone by the end of May.

agreed, extent is a worthless statistic in the face of rapidly deteriorating sea ice conditions I have said so in both summer and winter.  Only volume estimates matter now, and these should be tempered to CAB and no including exported volume that will inevitably melt out.  (for example, the barents this year.) 
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2163 on: January 25, 2017, 03:31:30 PM »
Another nice visualization of the connected depressions along the North Atlantic ocean, today

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2164 on: January 25, 2017, 03:49:21 PM »
How does this storm -- and ones this season -- manifest itself on our favorite products such as nullschool,

Just So.

Documented greatest heat pulse observed to date with comparison of 1998 El Nino Refreeze

image 1 precursor system of heat water vapor pulse with favorable northward conditions due to blocking system in Jet Stream

image 2 Nov 14, 2016 extreme Arctic Heat pulse system of entrained water vapor/heat moving into CAB with reconstituted low pressure in North Atlantic and new pulse beginning to exit the Gulf of Mexico for transport northward.

image 3. Nov 14, 2016 temperature overlay

image 4 1998 post-El Nino DMI Arctic Pulse and 2016 post El Nino Arctic pulse observations
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Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2165 on: January 25, 2017, 05:56:50 PM »
https://lance.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/imagery/single.cgi?image=crefl2_143.A2017024234500-2017024235000.250m.jpg

Yesterdays Modis (aqua) image from 23:45 UTC over Bering straits. The ice is well fragmented so some high swells must have worked through them?
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2166 on: January 25, 2017, 08:08:54 PM »
Rough seas in the CAB today. The ice must be moving around pretty good, as there are waves where Nares and Baffin meet, which is a rare occurrence with sea ice around. Storm which is near FJL is at 956 hpa now.
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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2167 on: January 25, 2017, 10:37:18 PM »
The latest MSLP chart from Environment Canada. 953 hPa, with 969 to follow:
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georged

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2168 on: January 26, 2017, 12:04:55 AM »
Given that European and Asian land surface temperatures are now lower than water surface temperatures, this storm appears to be pulling in cold air rather than warm. It's also positioned in a way that consolidates rather than exports ice.

subgeometer

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2169 on: January 26, 2017, 01:36:19 AM »
According to GFS, in about a week a hammer blow of heat and moisture is coming from the Pacific side.

That can't be good for the Bering Sea Ice, or Chukchi etc


be cause

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2170 on: January 26, 2017, 02:11:19 AM »
georged ..that is like a little truth in an ocean of Trumpisms  . The pole may spend the next week on the chilly side but storm induced export continues via the Fram of the thickest ice and the coldest temps .. Meanwhile virgin ice is dominating north of Asia and it is rushing as it thickens toward a Bearing straight where 20'C anomalies await it in a week .
By any estimate ; half the freezing season has passed . In 75 days , season will have taken over from weather .. the Arctic cannot hold back the Summer .. but to see the constant challenge to anything looking like an Arctic winter other than for a few days here or there (or somewhere) at this stage means optimism at the positioning of yet another storm is surely misplaced ?
 sorry georged .. you just stimulated me to response . Even as it cools at the pole , I doubt if the dmi 80 N will fall below average even for one day 'till winter's over .
  b.c.
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Feeltheburn

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2171 on: January 26, 2017, 02:21:00 AM »
As some noted during the melting season earlier this, after the most dire predictions turned out to be overblown, we really don't know enough about how ice forms and melts to predict with high confidence. There was a "pause" in melting in June and early July, after rapid losses in April and May, followed by more rapid losses in August. Then recovery was swift in September, continued through October, November, and December, but then stalled substantially in January. All the while temperatures in the Arctic were very high, possibly due to lots of heat venting from an ocean covered by less ice, as one notable poster said would be a very good thing.

Now ice, albeit thin ice, is spreading out towards Baring Sea and Svalbard. This coupled with very low temperatures of late will lead to continued rapid ice formation and extent enlargement, which we are seeing now after the "pause". What I am seeing is quite positive, at least compared to all the doom and gloom as interpreted by most here. I also read with some amusement how persons offering a rosier prognostication (Cato) were summarily criticized and delegitimized by the main body of the crowd.

I recognize that many who post here are experts and do not appreciate their work being questioned by less knowledgeable (like me). But science, by definition, is supposed to question, not proclaim dogma. I appreciate all informative viewpoints I read here. I appreciate the least those which are snarky for the sake of running off alternative views. That's not healthy in science.
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2172 on: January 26, 2017, 02:49:16 AM »
Quote
the most dire predictions turned out to be overblown
No need for dire predictions anymore. Now we can just simply make dire observations.
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2173 on: January 26, 2017, 03:27:10 AM »
As some noted during the melting season earlier this, after the most dire predictions turned out to be overblown, we really don't know enough about how ice forms and melts to predict with high confidence. There was a "pause" in melting in June and early July, after rapid losses in April and May, followed by more rapid losses in August. Then recovery was swift in September, continued through October, November, and December, but then stalled substantially in January. All the while temperatures in the Arctic were very high, possibly due to lots of heat venting from an ocean covered by less ice, as one notable poster said would be a very good thing.
<snippage of distracting OT social stuff>
OK, I think the first thing you need to do, FTB, is keep away from value judgements like the one you made in your first sentence.

That said, let's draw your attention back to your assertion of recovery in September, continuing through December.

I'm pretty much at a loss to understand how you can reach that conclusion.  Even the most generous metric - SIE - has been until just the last few days running 100's of thousands to over a million KM2 lower than any other year on record.

An while I agree, that more open water provided potential means for more venting of heat out of the ocean, in practical terms, offering this as proof that this will permit recovery ignores a wide range of other factors which categorically render that additional loss meaningless.  Among the myriad of other forces in play include...

* Down-welling radiation from clouds and additional mosture
* Constraint of out-bound radiation by increased moisture and imported atmospheric heat
* Massive loss of MYI
* Continued massive import of heat via North Atlantic oceanic currents
* Massively increased net Arctic Ocean enthalpy
* Existing heat at depth made accessible by increased upper-layer ocean turbulence
* Mechanical forces applied which render new ice weaker and more prone to attack and movement
* Anemic ice formation and thickening due to increased heat trapped in system (see: FDD reduction)

This is just off the top of my head.

Now we are past the middle of the season, and the early part, which has been determined to be most key in some ways for the formation and strengthening of the pack is gone, after having experienced the worst start and most heat *ever* in the modern record.

After an astonishingly bad fall, we are now starting 2017 in much the same vein as 2016, which by itself in 2016, even with 2 months of anemic melt conditions led to the 2nd lowest sea ice minima on record.

So here we are, with long range forcasting suggesting conditions for the rest of the refreeze will meet or exceed 2016, with less volume, significantly less MYI and more total heat in system.

Convincing us a recovery is on the way is far from impossible, in fact its encouraged.  However, you need to have equally convincing fact to back it up.  You can't wave your hands and cite people's past performance, which in fact wasn't too bad (2nd lowest...).  You need to show us the mechanisms and describe what we missed, and show us why its important.  Without that, you *will* be dismissed, and justifiably so.
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DrTskoul

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2174 on: January 26, 2017, 03:41:11 AM »
FTB please....  Of course we know exactly how ice forms and how ice melts. All physical phenomena and thermodynamics ( heat and mass transfer coefficients, ice mechanical strength, interfacial area, radiation, heat conducticity, heat capacity etc) are precisely known for a given salt cocentration. Precise observational data to precisely set the initial conditions for any dynamic evolution is what is missing. Therefore we can only define a probability distribution of outcomes given a probability distribution of initial conditions. Making mistakes in the interpretation of the patterns and the resulting prognosis does not mean we don't understand what is going on.

We hear it so many times from that certain side...You can't predict the weather therefore you know nutin'...

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2175 on: January 26, 2017, 05:02:42 AM »
dftt
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2176 on: January 26, 2017, 06:50:10 AM »
Why does Hudson Bay look so bad? Has Hudson Strait gone in the export business?
Maybe, if you can look past the clouds.
CLICK IMAGE
« Last Edit: January 26, 2017, 06:56:14 AM by Tigertown »
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Pmt111500

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2177 on: January 26, 2017, 08:17:27 AM »
Why does Hudson Bay look so bad? Has Hudson Strait gone in the export business?
Maybe, if you can look past the clouds.
CLICK IMAGE


Warmer water flowing in the bottom of the Bay as the rivers still bring fresh water on top? These get mixed due tide cracking ice? Does Hudson have large tides? I remember it's a bit brackish like southern Baltic I guess. My guess is salty ocean water surfacing, but not sure. Essentially I think the same as under floating sections of ice sheets?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2017, 09:34:16 AM by Pmt111500 »

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2178 on: January 26, 2017, 10:05:13 AM »
Why does Hudson Bay look so bad? Has Hudson Strait gone in the export business?
Maybe, if you can look past the clouds.


Warmer water flowing in the bottom of the Bay as the rivers still bring fresh water on top? These get mixed due tide cracking ice? Does Hudson have large tides? I remember it's a bit brackish like southern Baltic I guess. My guess is salty ocean water surfacing, but not sure. Essentially I think the same as under floating sections of ice sheets?

Tides in Hudson Strait are quite large with parts of Ungave bay,  at the bottom of the image, having one of the largest tidal ranges in the world. Hudson Bay itself ranges from several  meters on the west coast  to less than one on the east.

http://www.ocean-sci.net/10/411/2014/os-10-411-2014.pdf
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Pmt111500

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2179 on: January 26, 2017, 10:18:37 AM »
Thanks DavidR, Baltic sea has minimal tides, so it's not directly comprable to Hudson then. Maybe compare to the slight storm surges of 1,5 to 2 m on coasts. Quite a unique area in the world, Hudson Bay.

budmantis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2180 on: January 26, 2017, 10:28:55 AM »
Quote
the most dire predictions turned out to be overblown
No need for dire predictions anymore. Now we can just simply make dire observations.

Dire observations indeed! I can understand FTB's point to some extent. Some members overreact whenever someone even suggests "recovery" or more favorable freezing conditions. I think at least a little more patience should be used in explaining the reality of the situation. That being said, with a disastrous freezing season now past the halfway point, the situation is indeed dire. At this point, the Arctic will be facing the upcoming melt season in the worst shape it has ever been in, no matter what happens in the next two months.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2181 on: January 26, 2017, 12:10:14 PM »
... All the while temperatures in the Arctic were very high, possibly due to lots of heat venting from an ocean covered by less ice...
Ocean covered by less ice had some to do with it. My opinion in October was that it had ALL to do with it, but I also admit I was WRONG. In my defense, there was no previous experience of an Autumn with such temperatures and humidity as the Arctic has experienced this time.
So there is an avalanche of evidence of terra incognita not positive for the Arctic ice (see the list presented by jdallen and all posts by A-Team, aslan, tweets by ZLabe, graphs by Wipneus, the FDD by Tealight, and I am missing a lot surely...),

If you want to deny it, fine.

Below the last edition of Tealight's FDD anomaly. Incredibly, we are already with a more negative anomaly than last year in JUNE, which was then considered "TERRA INCOGNITA" in a nice blog entry by Neven. What is this now? Venus, maybe?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2017, 12:21:36 PM by seaicesailor »

BenB

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2182 on: January 26, 2017, 12:59:52 PM »

This coupled with very low temperatures of late will lead to continued rapid ice formation and extent enlargement, which we are seeing now after the "pause".

I'm not sure I see the very low temperatures of late:



Certainly they're limited to a small area. Of course it's cold - it's winter in the Arctic - but on average it's much less cold than it has been historically.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2183 on: January 26, 2017, 01:25:06 PM »
Agreed Ben!

From here on in it will be about what we haven't got in the 'bank' not what we might be able to bank before sun up.

DMI80N shows us just how this winter has treated the ice in the basin and it is a departure from what we knew as 'the norm'!

EDIT: Even Mark Serreze believe we are beyond extreme over the past year;

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/comment-crazy-times-arctic
« Last Edit: January 26, 2017, 01:51:56 PM by Gray-Wolf »
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NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2184 on: January 26, 2017, 02:46:42 PM »
dftt

Well now, there’s a thing.  I never thought that I’d see this on this forum.  Called a troll because s/he has the cojones to make some challenging statements to try and rebalance the conversation.

Personally I’ve noticed the same kind of inflammatory statements as we were having with Vid last year in the melting season.  You know, when he said that the winter would not freeze up again this year because “something” was going to override the entire system.

Simply put, as was clearly outlined here, there is not enough spare energy going free, yet and possibly for a long time, to allow that to happen.

But, here I have to also stand up and make a statement to this trend.  There have been winter predictions, on this thread, anticipating that the extent won’t go over 12m.  Then dire predictions of loss and reversal and just about every other kind of prediction; that the incoming heat from a few storms could overcome the general trend of an Arctic winter with no sun to warm the ocean.

Reality?  The real question is how far over 14m will it go and will it really go over 14.5m or will it say ~400k below 2007, as it started the year, throughout the entire winter, or will it do as 2012 did and have a late pseudo recovery, just in time for the denialists to trumpet it and then a long and sustained fall?

It was asked on the freezing basics whether there is such a thing as “freezing momentum”.  It was rapidly compared to the melting season and then dismissed.  But one quick look at the graph below lends its support to the theory that winter IS “freezing momentum” and that any major change in the state of the ice in winter will have to overcome that momentum first, before making a step change.

None of this is talking about volume, nothing to do with export or any of the other mechanisms which will all play their part in the coming ice loss of 2017.  Likely to be another step change in the ice balance of the arctic.  So I’m not even addressing it.  I’m talking about the fact that the ice extent is growing despite the storms, despite the heat in the ocean or imported by the storms and despite the, somewhat, feverish, rhetoric that now seems a la mode on these melting and freezing threads.

Like Jim and one or two others I have spent far more time on WUWT than the vast majority of people on this site.  I find it exceptionally unwelcome to experience the same sort of “group think” and “ganging up” purely because the commenter does not agree with the general consensus.

So could we please stop calling a poster, who has been here for a while, a troll, just because s/he happens to challenge the accepted consensus on the thread.

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binntho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2185 on: January 26, 2017, 02:56:59 PM »
Hear hear!
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2186 on: January 26, 2017, 04:10:20 PM »
NeilT - agreed.

There's far too many surprises going on in the Arctic for anyone to try and hold the moral high ground about the changes. I'll agree that some positions are more extreme than others, but it should be the message and not the person that is tested.

At least we're in the position that it's only a matter of time before we see who read it right.

....and I still miss Friv and his great 'blowtorch' comments.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2187 on: January 26, 2017, 04:12:06 PM »
Without picking on any one individual, my take on the problem with these kind of controversies arising is as follows: there are some people on here reading through this thread more casually than others and not really pondering over everything that is happening before our eyes. They are not necessarily trying to sow discord, but may not have been here everyday laboring through the details. When they do pop in, everyone else probably sounds real negative. In past seasons, popping in and reading here and there probably worked out all right, as boring as the freezing season can be. Negative talk may have just been negative talk. A lot has happened this year, though. I might be assuming all this to a degree, but when all that is going on and being discussed in detail on a daily basis, and you don't hear from certain ones regularly to discuss all that is occurring as it happens, but then wham, out of the blue, they make a comment that everything is better, it is hard not to react. If someone disagrees with all the observed changes in the Arctic Winter, they really need some details as to what and why.
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be cause

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2188 on: January 26, 2017, 04:22:07 PM »
If I recall correctly ftb referred to this thread as an 'alarmist's echo chamber' a few months ago . I have seen nothing but alarming information being posted . Is this a fault of observation and interpretation or is it a reflection of the reality ?
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2189 on: January 26, 2017, 04:57:44 PM »
If I recall correctly ftb referred to this thread as an 'alarmist's echo chamber' a few months ago . I have seen nothing but alarming information being posted . Is this a fault of observation and interpretation or is it a reflection of the reality ?
  b.c.
Probably both. Science is at least in part a machine for grinding away at the confirmation bias inherent in competing theories. Measurements are measurements, but interpretation is sometimes gifted the title of observation by people with theories to support. What has happened is observation. What will happen is prediction. If we could observe the future then we could give up science and bet on the races instead.

NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2190 on: January 26, 2017, 04:58:23 PM »
I went back and re-read that post.

FTB was talking about something I have also been talking about.  The microscopic focus on the damage caused by the storms, whilst ignoring the reality that the ice is returning at a rate similar to other years, whilst having started from a lower level after a protracted turn over from melt to freeze.

How it feels like far fetched statements on freeze lows are OK but any focus on the rate of re-growth of extent is not.

FTB used the word "appear" before denialist echo chamber.  That was not a direct accusation, more a warning of the impression being given.  I know that this is a subtlety of the English language and I would not expect a ESL speaker or an EAL speaker to always recognise the subtlety.

I have also spoken out about this approach.  I nearly responded to A-Team's appeal to "keep focusing on the small details" so we could compare them with next year.  I decided that to try and make my point about differing seasons and no two years being even close to the same was simply not worth it.

FTB is trying to make a point.  Only a few are listening.

That doesn't make FTB a troll any more than it makes me a troll and I'm saying the same thing, essentially.
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RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2191 on: January 26, 2017, 05:08:32 PM »
We continually battle the quality of the measure that is generally accepted. Sea ice extent is a poor measure of what is happening in the Arctic ocean, that is except in one way; that it is the most accurately measured. In many way's it's the deminimis measure. It gives no indication of quality nor thickness of the ice. It value is dependent on variables that we have a poor understanding of.

What is the model we are seeking when we observe extent? From my brief time watching the Arctic I'd say that it's too noisy a signal to put much weight on. As more data is gathered, year by year, then its changes can be plotted and trends discovered, but trying to predict the future extent when a month of good cold weather can change it rapidly is a little too much like predicting the price of oil next month from lasts weeks price changes. I wouldn't bet much on where the extent will end up this year or next year, but I would weigh in heavily on where it will be in 10 years.

However, that being said, it IS the measure used by denialists and also climate change advocates because of the variations driven by noise. I think everyone on this forum is taking action over climate change, either through research or industry or their home life. What we can do is also push different measurements through graphics and data that hit home. Wip's graph went viral, and we all know the issues with presenting the data in the way he did. Let's try and get more meaningful data well presented and keep the awful truths about the state of the Arctic in the public eye. It is the canary in the coal mine.



jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2192 on: January 26, 2017, 05:13:57 PM »
saying that the recent increase in sea ice extent is in line with previous years' growth is as shortsighted as saying that the relatively low anomalies of negative sea ice extent, below similar low years, was the primary cause of massive amounts of heat and water vapor moving into the arctic from a super-charged tropical water vapor belt.

when someone caveats their analysis by saying, 'albiet thinner' what they are really acknowledging is that this metric is no longer useful in communicating actual sea ice conditions.
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meddoc

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2193 on: January 26, 2017, 05:14:52 PM »
Don' worry People, the Atomic Scientist just released their newest Doomsday Clock Annual Update:

It is 2 and a half Minutes to Midnight

I guess it's to reinforce the guys who still believe in 2050 and 2100 targets and Worst Case Scenarios.

Paddy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2194 on: January 26, 2017, 05:20:12 PM »
saying that the recent increase in sea ice extent is in line with previous years' growth is as shortsighted as saying that the relatively low anomalies of negative sea ice extent, below similar low years, was the primary cause of massive amounts of heat and water vapor moving into the arctic from a super-charged tropical water vapor belt.

when someone caveats their analysis by saying, 'albiet thinner' what they are really acknowledging is that this metric is no longer useful in communicating actual sea ice conditions.

To add to this, I feel that extent at any given time of year is a particularly poor indicator. Best to look at average over a year at a whole, to strip out a little of the noise.

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2195 on: January 26, 2017, 05:22:11 PM »
averages that include a 20% increase in total extent made up of brash ice compared to previous years is a false indicator.

at this point only volume is a useful comparison tool.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2196 on: January 26, 2017, 05:24:41 PM »
I hope Tealight doesn't mind me posting this from his site, as it seems timely to this discussion. Things have changed, and beyond seasonal variance, and I trust the fact that there are people on here that would offer sound proof and not let me say that if it were not true.
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Jim Pettit

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2197 on: January 26, 2017, 05:40:01 PM »
Personally, I've simply grown tired and bored with those who engage in trollish behavior: showing "concern' for the forum by repeatedly chastising those of us who report the ice situation as we see it, combatively introducing nonsensical WUWT talking points, responding to disagreements with overly-defensive cries of "Well, I guess I'm just stupid and you guys are all so smart!". And so on, the same exact behavior I've witnessed on a hundred other science-based forums over the years. I'm not one for censorship, but I *do* often find myself wistfully wishing people such as that would go play in less sober-minded sandboxes, and leave this one for the serious people.

(Apologies to Neven for the wildly OT rant.)

Paddy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2198 on: January 26, 2017, 05:42:05 PM »
averages that include a 20% increase in total extent made up of brash ice compared to previous years is a false indicator.

at this point only volume is a useful comparison tool.

Fair points. I'm quite interested to see what the January piomas estimate will be.

DrTskoul

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #2199 on: January 26, 2017, 05:43:17 PM »
FDD s a perfect measure of the taverage thickening forcing. Coupled with extend and you get an average sence of volume growth potential.  Which  is what PIOMAS tries to model