Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: The 2016/2017 freezing season  (Read 1468900 times)

budmantis

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1220
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 7
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1250 on: December 07, 2016, 06:29:18 AM »
I have just been browsing through some of my old articles about the Arctic. 

Welcome Patrick, I recall reading some of your articles on science20.com. Great to have you with us.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1251 on: December 07, 2016, 08:09:03 AM »
Climate Reanalyzer anomalies, D+72 hours.  This is just absurd.
This space for Rent.

viggovang

  • New ice
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1252 on: December 07, 2016, 08:26:13 AM »
Accumulated Freezing Degree Days N80 thru Dec 06, 2016:

Climatology:1525.13
2016: 786.76
Anomaly: -738.37

Where do you get the actual data? I can only find the graphics on their site.

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1253 on: December 07, 2016, 11:55:38 AM »
I wonder if we are able to see the abnormal temperatures this season in the O-buoy ice/depth temperature profiles yet.  I am not convinced that any spectacular heat retention will take place since a thermocline would have the same effect.  Of course, as long as stretches of open water/high winds exist there will be lots of mixing, that has to have some effect, probably increased heat loss this year from those regions (and higher amounts of low clouds/ice mist)
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

crandles

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3379
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 239
  • Likes Given: 81
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1254 on: December 07, 2016, 12:24:27 PM »
Accumulated Freezing Degree Days N80 thru Dec 06, 2016:

Climatology:1525.13
2016: 786.76
Anomaly: -738.37
Where do you get the actual data? I can only find the graphics on their site.

Nice post ktonine.

Also where is that graph from?

liefde

  • New ice
  • Posts: 55
  • ice melt will trump donald
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 8
  • Likes Given: 6
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1255 on: December 07, 2016, 12:47:27 PM »


It's the (new) CCI Reanalyzer, GFS 2m T anomalies of +30 C here and there in the Arctic Dec. 9th..
http://cci-reanalyzer.org/wxrmaps/#GFS-025deg.WORLD-CED.T2_anom

ktonine

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 363
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1256 on: December 07, 2016, 01:26:45 PM »
Where do you get the actual data? I can only find the graphics on their site.
Also where is that graph from?

I just threw the graph together in a spreadsheet based on the DMI N80 data.

Jim Hunt provided the ZIP file for previous years in a comment over in 'Stupid Questions'

Current year data can be found on the DMI ftp site ftp.dmi.dk/plus80N_temperatureindex/

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1257 on: December 07, 2016, 03:30:14 PM »
Retreat action over at the Chukchi continues on Dec 6th. It's not easy to partition change between melt, pull-back, compression and ridging of the main ice pack. Most of the tools (satellite instruments + sequence of processing algorithms) lack both sufficient resolution and adequate accuracy. However by following recognizable features, it appears that melt is part of the mix. Surface water shown at nullschool for the Chukchi on Dec 5th is 3 degrees above the freezing point of sea water.

Technical note on making 3D animations in ImageJ: it helps if the original product (like UH AMSR2) uses a color palette that remains orderly after desaturation of luminosity. This makes sense -- and is no real limitation -- since graphics intended for human viewing should be using perceptual palettes, ie use shades the eye can discriminate.

Products like Piomas make direct semiotic sense to display in 3D as the z direction is literally height or thickness. A view looking up the Fram is attached. Note the 'Interactive 3D surface Plot' tool in ImageJ can then drape another image like SMOS snow thickness on top of Piomas (not shown).

With AMSR2 or SMOS, it is quite feasible to display nullschool ocean temperatures as an open water cutout. Since the water temperature palette is not at all luminosity driven, it needs to be cast in the same 3D specifications and placed under say the AMSR cast with a unique gray replacing its open water (not shown).
« Last Edit: December 08, 2016, 12:38:57 AM by A-Team »

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1258 on: December 07, 2016, 09:39:09 PM »
Retreat action over at the Chukchi continues on Dec 6th. It's not easy to partition change between mel, pull-back, compression and ridging of the main ice pack. Most of the tools lack both sufficient resolution and adequate accuracy. However by following recognizable features, it appears that melt is part of the mix. Surface water shown at nullschool for the Chukchi on Dec 5th is 3 degrees above the freezing point of sea water.
<snippage>
Fascinating as usual, A-Team; I'm in the process of getting tools setup on this system.  First task will be to learn how to set up the land mask and grid, and map data to it.

The heat in the Chukchi is rather intense. I'm wondering if the weather will be able to disperse it sufficiently that refreeze can happen before the end of the year.  Similarly, the heat in the Bering is pretty extreme as well.  I'm wondering if we'll have significant ice there before the end of January, if then.
This space for Rent.

crandles

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3379
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 239
  • Likes Given: 81
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1259 on: December 07, 2016, 09:43:28 PM »

I just threw the graph together in a spreadsheet based on the DMI N80 data.

Jim Hunt provided the ZIP file for previous years in a comment over in 'Stupid Questions'

Current year data can be found on the DMI ftp site ftp.dmi.dk/plus80N_temperatureindex/

Excellent. really like it.

Any chance of weekly or monthly updates?

werther

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 747
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 31
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1260 on: December 07, 2016, 10:16:47 PM »
Quoting myself (10 May 2016):
“I’m going for a ’10 year. Terrible for volume. Almost ’12 for extent. Disaster for who is initiated in Arctic Fate. Business as usual for the innocent.”

And from 25 April 2016:
“I remain with my point of view December ’14: a ’17 black swan-event putting extent < 1 Mkm2 initiating a bifurcation in the state of the Arctic Ocean, a series of ‘on/off’ summers, a first < 1Mkm3 volume year around ’23 and a 10 year decline into a perennial ice-free Arctic Ocean. And mind, some FYI will form even then in Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin, the CAA and other sheltered nooks.”

And:
“Next winter will set the hazards. Will the Arctic experience a strong La Nina atmospheric set-up or will neutral/slightly positive ONI-circumstances prevail?
Anyway, positive PDO conditions will remain, so there’s a big chance atmospheric winter-warming will continue.
After that, during ’17, odds for a combination of high-impact melt events will be very high.”

I watch it all pass, feeling weary. It seems completely foreseeable. I don’t think the models are flawed. But as I sensed for years now, they are based on trends and data from the past. That’s probably part of the reason why the models can’t handle sudden feedback-loops and the lagging buffering in the biospheric system.

Meanwhile, on top of an extreme lack of ‘winter power’, the same config that was so repetitive December-February last winter is showing up again:



On ‘winter power’; compared to last year, which was already quite anomalously warm by this date, the situation now is off the charts. ECMWF seems to indicate that this will continue right up to the end of this year.

ktonine

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 363
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1261 on: December 07, 2016, 11:34:19 PM »
Any chance of weekly or monthly updates?

I've been updating it every 2 to 4 days and posting it here.  That should continue for the foreseeable future :)

Archimid

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3511
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 899
  • Likes Given: 206
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1262 on: December 07, 2016, 11:45:40 PM »
Ktonine, I would also like to thank you for the graph. One thing:

Quote
Implied new ice thickness to date:

Perhaps "Potential new ice thickness to date:" is a better term than "Implied"?






I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1263 on: December 08, 2016, 12:14:07 AM »
So....Is the bottom in the extreme north (80 degrees plus) going to be about the same as it was after December 27th 2015 last winter?  I still haven't figured out why 0 Fahrenheit is such an interesting number -- maybe that's when you really have to squeeze the water to get it out of the air...or maybe that is when the top 1/4 inch of water becomes salt saturated...

It is clear the Arctic is not the same beast it was a year ago.

seaicesailor

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1264 on: December 08, 2016, 01:13:57 AM »
Retreat action over at the Chukchi continues on Dec 6th. It's not easy to partition change between mel, pull-back, compression and ridging of the main ice pack. Most of the tools lack both sufficient resolution and adequate accuracy. However by following recognizable features, it appears that melt is part of the mix. Surface water shown at nullschool for the Chukchi on Dec 5th is 3 degrees above the freezing point of sea water.
<snippage>
Fascinating as usual, A-Team; I'm in the process of getting tools setup on this system.  First task will be to learn how to set up the land mask and grid, and map data to it.

The heat in the Chukchi is rather intense. I'm wondering if the weather will be able to disperse it sufficiently that refreeze can happen before the end of the year.  Similarly, the heat in the Bering is pretty extreme as well.  I'm wondering if we'll have significant ice there before the end of January, if then.
The current injection of heat seems again really extraordinary (like heat being pulled from as south as Japan) but note that whatever wind blowing from either Alaska or Eastern Siberia will typically bring extreme coldness, so Chukchi sea should be closed by the end of the year. Still, who would have thought...  :o

ktonine

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 363
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1265 on: December 08, 2016, 02:57:47 AM »

Quote
Implied new ice thickness to date:

Perhaps "Potential new ice thickness to date:" is a better term than "Implied"?

potential -- having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
implied -- suggested but not directly expressed; implicit.

Archimid -- FDDs do not explicitly tell us anything about ice growth. New ice thickness is implied from the two different formulas used; Lebedev which dates to 1938 and Bilello which dates to 1961.  You can find more on them in Chris Reynolds post (and the comments) on his Dosbat blog 'The simplest model of sea ice growth'

This isn't potential, we don't know what the new ice thickness at some future date will be based on FDDs measured to date.  We can only state what thickness we should see *now* if we were to go out and find ice that first started freezing back in September.

New ice doesn't constitute much area north of 80 degrees, but it probably provides a maximum for what can form between N70 and N80 -- an area of much greater interest.

magnamentis

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1266 on: December 08, 2016, 02:58:39 AM »
@magnamentis and tigertown.
re: stall - both senses of the word apply iin the Arctic ice context.

1 - stall (automotive) - to stop completely as in stalling an engine.

2 - stall (aviation and dynamics) - to reduce a system factor to such an extent that stability is lost, temporarily or permanently.

When a plane stalls you can get an interchange of potential and kinetic energy leading to a phugoid oscillation in flight level, as in the image below from the movie 'Battle of Britain'.

If you filter out the annual cycle of ice gain and loss you will see a phugoid oscillation in current Arctic sea ice extent as graphed by NSIDC.

true that, fully aware of both as the holder of a pilot license as well as a former employ of an enterprise that is specialized in aerodynamics :-)

i think it's often only about agreement on terms as the old greek upon reunions spent most of the time in seeking agreement on terms before getting down to business and make decisions withing the hour :-)

thanks however for the correct and clear definition.

magnamentis

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1267 on: December 08, 2016, 03:02:43 AM »
In terms of freezing degree days, check out spatial means for October, November, and 23 days before December 6th combined with next 7 day forecast.  It'll be interesting to track how these areas respond during melting season.
We're not getting into the part of the refreeze where those negative degree days start to be really painful.

Up to this point, I think the core of the freezing season - December to March - could still permit substantial recovery and thickening of the ice.

With the incredible anomalies forecast - even if they're only half of what's suggested - the implications for the heat budget are pretty dire.  If the split vortex settles in, we'll see pretty constant expulsion of the colder air in Arctic Breakouts, and similar intrusions of heat across the Barents and Bering.  It will quite possibly exceed 2015 as reflected by the madness in the DMI 80N temperatures.  In that case, the already weak ice, insulated with fairly thick snow - 20-30CM across most of the current extent - will have no opportunity to thicken.  We could reach March with close to 2016 maximum extent (not very hard) but with 15-20% thinner ice, and much of last seasons heat preserved under it. 

Note in 2017, we won't have a huge slug of thick MYI in the Beaufort to slow things down - it got eaten last year - and the Atlantic side shows no signs of cooling off, at all, and is rapidly consuming every bit of MYI that's being shoved into it.

Color me, pessimistic.

substantial refreezing, hence ice building, including some significant thickness yes, substantial recovery as compared to earlier years i'd say no. i personally can't see any way to get even close to volumes ( extent/area x thickness) of earlier years, provided that we shall not see an extremely prolonged and cold freezing season in spring 2017 for which as well i can't see any indicator.

Archimid

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3511
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 899
  • Likes Given: 206
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1268 on: December 08, 2016, 03:25:14 AM »


potential -- having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
implied -- suggested but not directly expressed; implicit.

Snip...

Ok, that's fair.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

DavidR

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 740
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 36
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1269 on: December 08, 2016, 09:12:31 AM »
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1270 on: December 08, 2016, 02:29:17 PM »
In the midst of the record lows in most regions for this time of year, it is important to note that one of these seas is not like the others!



Compared to most every year since 1979, 2016's ice cover in the Sea of Okhotsk is extremely far ahead vs. normal. Clearly this has to do with the record-setting cold that has developed and persisted across much of north-central Eurasia. But it also shows that if we see additional continental cooling in future years, perhaps sea ice ends up redistributing towards middle-high latitudes instead of the very high latitudes...

The Mpemba effect would seem to imply that if ^ is indeed the case then as the icy oceans in the Arctic & high latitudes continue experiencing a spike in warming (until they hit the freezing point, at which point warming becomes much more gradual/erratic), they end up ice-free, but still rather cold for most of the year. This is not conducive to freezing, but it also seems to force continental cooling in autumn as snowcover increases in a prolific response to the +++water vapor/open water.

While the Arctic is becoming increasingly hostile to ice formation, the Mpemba effect would possibly open the door to a plausibility that anomalous ice growth in the upper mid-latitudes could counter the high-latitude ice declines in terms of raw extent numbers as Arctic Amplification continues to worsen.

If this is the case then we should see the generous North Atlantic & Sea of Okhotsk extent/area numbers of recent years continue to widen in disparity vs. the Arctic itself.

While Hudson Bay is clearly still scorching, the Atlantic ice front is actually not doing terribly poorly off Quebec, and in fact is one of the only other areas besides Okhotsk performing at or above par. I think this is primarily for a different reason so far -- the garlic press of multi-yr ice that pushes through the CAA in late summer, for one -- but as ice continues reaching into the newly-relatively-warm NATL waters, perhaps the final extent in the North Atlantic this year will also be quite generous.



In any case it is now very apparent that we are seeing worsening reactions to Arctic warming/an increasingly ice-free state in the far north. Wow.

« Last Edit: December 08, 2016, 02:34:33 PM by bbr2314 »

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1271 on: December 08, 2016, 02:45:28 PM »
Quote
wind blowing from either Alaska or Eastern Siberia will typically bring extreme coldness, so Chukchi sea should be closed by the end of the year. Still, who would have thought...
Right now and as far out as Hycom and GFS forecast, it is not conducive to closing. The area of open water has been steady the last week (reddish numbers). An oddity, in the form of ice initiating in open water (and growing as it blows around), suggests however that the Chukchi is riding the line on the phase diagram.

The animation below marshals what applicable satellite data we have. It extends to Dec 14th in some instances and includes 31 Dec 31st for 2011-15 U Bremen SMOS. These show the Chukchi - Bering Strait region has had thin ice but no open water on this dat; it seems a stretch to go out to the end of this month based on the dicey applicability of past years.

The Bering Sea, south of the strait, would be more pertinent to monitor during the rest of the winter, even though it is 'off-topic' in terms of Arctic Ocean. If that stays anomalously warm, there would be ramifications for next melt season in terms of (unpredictable and highly variable) influxes into the Chukchi.

There are no technical issues in making (or update-scripting) the animations. The 'wasted space' in the 30 Nov - 06 Dec base layer sequence of AMRS2 can be overlain with various nullschool, hycom and SMOS products such as surface air temperature, wind speed and direction, water temperature, thickness projections and thin ice in the present and past years. Some of these provide future frames so the AMSR2 layer remains frozen on its last data data while the others continue until they run out of forecast. Thus it is a matter of bringing all the frame-sets up to the longest (15). Since layers did not interact here arithmetically -- no 'quantitative color' -- sources originally in indexed color need conversion to RGB prior to rotations and (bicubic) rescaling.

Questioning the Mpemba effect: hot water does not cool more quickly than cold
HC Burridgea PF Linden
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5121640/ free full text 2016

The Mpemba effect is the name given to the assertion that it is quicker to cool water to a given temperature when the initial temperature is higher. This assertion seems counter-intuitive and yet references to the effect go back at least to the writings of Aristotle. Indeed, at first thought one might consider the effect to breach fundamental thermodynamic laws, but we show that this is not the case. We go on to examine the available evidence for the Mpemba effect and carry out our own experiments by cooling water in carefully controlled conditions. We conclude, somewhat sadly, that there is no evidence to support meaningful observations of the Mpemba effect.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2016, 05:17:39 PM by A-Team »

Lord M Vader

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1406
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 60
  • Likes Given: 39
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1272 on: December 08, 2016, 04:55:38 PM »
I don't know how useful these pages might be, just happened to find them.

https://twitter.com/Istjenesten

https://twitter.com/Istjenesten

The second one gives daily areal sea ice area numbers. Right now we are at 4th lowest area on record for the date according to the Norwegian Ice Service.Data is going back to 1967.

woodstea

  • New ice
  • Posts: 87
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 13
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1273 on: December 08, 2016, 05:47:59 PM »
I wonder if we are able to see the abnormal temperatures this season in the O-buoy ice/depth temperature profiles yet.  I am not convinced that any spectacular heat retention will take place since a thermocline would have the same effect.  Of course, as long as stretches of open water/high winds exist there will be lots of mixing, that has to have some effect, probably increased heat loss this year from those regions (and higher amounts of low clouds/ice mist)

I assume you mean ocean buoys in general, since the last active O-Buoy (14) went silent last month, and the O-Buoys didn't have temp profiles by depth. The ITPs would seem like a good source for that data: http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=23097

There are just a few of those, though. The active ITPs (97/98/99) which were deployed this year are all in the Beaufort, with last year's ITP93 now headed for the Fram Strait.

Would it be possible to detect temperature trends from these buoys, considering that they move around? How would one compare year to year?

Iain

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 584
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 118
  • Likes Given: 95
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1274 on: December 08, 2016, 05:49:54 PM »
PIOMAS data for November has been released.

2016 has broken from the pack by some margin

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1275 on: December 08, 2016, 06:52:41 PM »
For what it's worth; NSIDC posted a 146,000 km2 gain for Dec. 7th.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

logicmanPatrick

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 244
    • View Profile
    • The Chatter Box
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1276 on: December 08, 2016, 07:36:31 PM »
To all who have welcomed me here with kind thoughts: I am humbly grateful.

Re; the Mpemba effect.  There is one very specific circumstance in which a bucket of hot water will freeze faster than a bucket of cold water.

Experiment 1 - a bucket of hot and a bucket of cold water are stood on the ground in freezing conditions.  The cold water freezes first.

Experiment 2 - both buckets are placed on snow in freezing conditions.  Both buckets sink into the snow a little under their own weight, but the hot bucket continues to melt into the snow.  Snow is an insulator, but wet snow is not. 

The cold bucket freezes mainly from the top down - a slow process because ice is an insulator and because water at 4 deg C sits long at the bottom of the bucket, and water is also an insulator.

The hot bucket having melted into wet snow freezes from the top, sides and bottom.  The extra thermal conduction compensates for the initial extra heat in the water.

The experiment can be repeated by anyone who lives in a country where snow and freezing conditions are common.

Here endeth the lecture.  :-)

Back on topic - I posted a link to my blog, but it got buried.  Some links to articles about Arctic ice -
http://www.science20.com/the_chatter_box/blog/something_is_wrong_in_the_arctic-180763
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

logicmanPatrick

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 244
    • View Profile
    • The Chatter Box
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1277 on: December 08, 2016, 07:53:40 PM »
Just up in my news feed -

Rafi Letzter writing for Business Insider reports -

The Arctic is now missing enough ice to cover 23 US states

http://uk.businessinsider.com/arctic-missing-ice-cover-states-2016-12?r=US&IR=T
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1278 on: December 08, 2016, 07:56:36 PM »
Nullschool.net is claming that at least some of the wind crossing the eastern tip of Asia at the surface is above 0C when it reaches the Arctic, and the whole area is not all that much below 0.  Not going to be adding a lot of ice that way.

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1279 on: December 08, 2016, 11:38:09 PM »
That’s probably part of the reason why the models can’t handle sudden feedback-loops and the lagging buffering in the biospheric system.

Case in point:  this study by Dirk Notz at Max Plank and Julienne Stroeve at NSIDC  (here: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/747 ) uses historical extent data to show a square footage per metric tonne of CO2 emissions.  However, it doesn't correct for aerosol forcing which we already know has a much larger effect in the arctic (and had been increasing during the latter portion of this study period).  Therefore, in using a flawed metric (extent instead of volume) and pretending that aerosol emissions do not have any impact, she grossly underestimates the projection of future sea ice loss.

even to the point of making the laughable (if it wasn't so deadly important) assertion that it would take ANY MORE emissions from today to cause an ice free Semptember minimum.  (hint: it won't).



^^^THIS GRAPHIC IS A GROSS UNDERSTATEMENT^^^
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1280 on: December 09, 2016, 02:42:56 PM »
Quote
using a flawed metric (extent instead of volume) and ignoring aerosol emissions do not have any impact, she grossly underestimates the projection of future sea ice loss. laughable (if it wasn't so deadly important) assertion that it would take ANY MORE emissions from today to cause an ice free September minimum.  (hint: it won't). Graphic is gross.
Thanks, Jai. That and more needs to be said. The article is not even up to forum standards. The gimmick though was well-intentioned: personal footprint <--> lost ice. However it is way too late in the day for mickey-mouse mitigation like (voluntary) air travel offsets to begin in 2027 etc.

How about 30 day prison sentences in 2017 for climate scientists who try to kick the Arctic sea ice can down the road to 2050? They know better, all of them. Free speech in the U.S. doesn't cover yelling "Fire!" in a crowded brewpub when there is no fire, nor does it cover not yelling "Fire!" when there is a fire.

Pathetic how some cling to models in the face of reality -- do they really believe multiple models and ensemble kalman filtering can put the prediction train back on the track? Unmodeled runaway feedbacks have taken charge.

Is the Beaufort Gyre still going around? It was going full bore back around July 1st but without floes to track it has been hard to follow. The animation below looks, inconclusively, at the situation from November 1st on, using simultaneous AMSR2, SMOS and Piomas. Sentinel 1A 20 m active radar has not been around during the last month. Weather artifacts, low contrast and low resolution over optically uniform ice are the main issues.

Meanwhile, the extent of open water in the Chukchi continued to grow on 08 Dec 16. Yes, grow. A small patch of open water has even opened up off the Mackenzie. The ice has moved around but no net loss has occurred in the last week according to either SMOS or AMSR2 which are different instruments on different satellites (note though that the earliest stages in ice formation remain problematic both in definition and characterization).
« Last Edit: December 09, 2016, 03:22:28 PM by A-Team »

NeilT

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6275
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 386
  • Likes Given: 22
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1281 on: December 09, 2016, 04:23:46 PM »
ATeam, whilst I do agree that the models being used are totally out of step with the reality of an Arctic responding to forcing.

But I also understand the attacks which have been levelled at Climate scientists simply for doing their job.  Nowadays if a climate scientists wants to talk about GHG forced step changes, they have to have proof, up front, before ever producing the result.

That proof simply doesn’t exist.  It takes at least 3 decades to make a trend and by the time that trend has been established the damage will be done.  So they are left to use the “certified” methodologies, those with no challenge to their results, to explain an arctic which is changing more rapidly than has ever been seen before.

Never before has Human GHG forcing been seen in the climate record.  Even a decade would be fleeting in an ice core that goes back 800,000 years.  It would take a pattern of decades to be recognised in the cores and a single year would be no more than 4mm in the older years.  Even a decade does not tell much at no more than 4cm of ice.

In prior cycles it has taken centuries for “sudden” step changes to happen.  Because the forcing has been from natural causes and the ice melt reaction has blocked or stopped the forcing for a time.

Contrast today where we are the forcing agent.  We are not impacted by weather, atmospheric gasses or even the sun.  We just keep on digging and sucking the carbon out of the ground and burning it.  Forcing on top of forcing on top of forcing.

Models take prior events and the makeup of the atmospheric gasses of those prior events and then extrapolate that into the current situation.  How could they possibly map the current atmospheric mix from the prior events?  We’re pushing up gasses that were never meant to be there so there is no record of this kind of event ever happening before in just this way.

Yet our scientists are expected to use the historical model to guarantee their predictions of future events.  Note we’re not talking about mixing and matching observations and results and making a reasoned prediction.  We’re talking about being able to _prove_ the prediction by showing that it has happened in exactly this way before.

It has not; but that does not mean that it won’t.  Just that our climate scientists can’t prove that it will.  I like to use the phrase “unreasonable doubt”.  It gets the lawyerly inclined thinking.  Because that is what the climate scientists are being “tried” by.  An unreasonable doubt.

Your analogy of shouting fire or not shouting fire, I have a different analogy.

A climate scientist shouting “climate forcing” is akin to a guard shouting “Alert” whilst the enemy is already facing them and pointing their rifle right at them.  Not everyone has the faith, resources or sheer dogged determination of James Hansen.

Back on theme.

I see Chartic has started to go more sideways than upwards again.  It’s looking quite likely that 2016 will exit the year as the lowest extent and volume in the Satellite era.

Logically I would expect that, by March, the ice will have extended out back to something approaching the new norm.  If it did not, then it would be extraordinary indeed and we would expect to see virtually ice free conditions in summer 2017.

I’m betting on the ice growing again but being exceptionally thin.  Making 2017 a very interesting year to watch indeed.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Robert A. Heinlein

Gray-Wolf

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 948
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 131
  • Likes Given: 458
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1282 on: December 09, 2016, 04:52:15 PM »
Have to agree about the ice for the rest of re-freeze NeilT. It is just inconceivable that 4 months of Arctic darkness will result in no ice formation. The peripheries is where we get our low years from and also , like in 2012, our high max ice levels. That said I can see Barentsz remaining low on ice and with such warm waters around Baffin maybe Baffin will be low? Hudson must freeze surely? Bering must freeze some way out from the straights and Okhotsk is tight under the icy blasts flowing out of Asia so surely that must put on ice?

It is the quality of that ice we end up with, coupled with the swapping of good ice for late formed FY ice that we need to concern ourselves with? We will see another spell of fragmentation by winters end surely? If the summer just past is our guide then weaker, thinner ice must surely mean a lower min even if June/July/August again keep cloudy/cool? May the gods help us if June or July are good for melt!!!
KOYAANISQATSI

ko.yaa.nis.katsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
 
VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS

Cid_Yama

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 232
    • View Profile
    • The Post Peak Oil Historian
  • Liked: 27
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1283 on: December 09, 2016, 06:07:43 PM »
I've lurked here for some time, but this is the first time I felt compelled to register and post.

I believe Jim White's talk on Abrupt Climate Change may be pertinent to what has happened this winter.

Quote
"So in a matter of 1 to 2 years, there's a very large change out over the ocean, and as a I said, the only thing we can think of that happens that fast is a change in the sea ice extent ..."

"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." - Patrick Henry

DoomInTheUK

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 221
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1284 on: December 09, 2016, 08:33:53 PM »
Thin ice, very little volume, throw in a few storms and the 2017 melt season could well be a blink-and-you-miss-it.  :-\

Lord M Vader

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1406
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 60
  • Likes Given: 39
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1285 on: December 09, 2016, 08:49:16 PM »
Hey people, don't worry about the sea ice next year. Trump will "make the Arctic sea ice great again" :P

meddoc

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 264
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 11
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1286 on: December 09, 2016, 08:52:50 PM »
I guess, at this point claiming that anything can be done to avoid global catastrophe is delusion.

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1287 on: December 09, 2016, 09:06:35 PM »
I had an extremely prominent climate scientist relate to me recently that he thought that any advanced models that held a possibility of an "ice-free" September in the arctic within the next 2 decades was stretching it.  He is at UW and directs a major program there with a product that we all use. 

He stated to me unequivocally that there is NO indication that there will be an ice free September within the next 7 years, he was quite sure of himself.

Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1288 on: December 09, 2016, 09:11:02 PM »
Just reading the latest PIOMAS update on the ASIB  (a little late getting to read it).  While reading, I was remembering how during the whole melt season everyone wondered if the minimum would beat 2012 come September. Well now the volume is so much lower than 2012 for this time of year, and extent and practically every other metric, for that matter. Daily average thickness hasn't dropped below 2012 yet, but is approaching it at such an angle that it would be hard do to anything but that. If I missed something let me know, but I think 2016 turned out worse than 2012, as what happened earlier that year allowed a lot more recovery time.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

6roucho

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 296
  • Finance geek
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 1
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1289 on: December 09, 2016, 09:38:02 PM »
Hey people, don't worry about the sea ice next year. Trump will "make the Arctic sea ice great again" :P
By liquidating its assets.

Csnavywx

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 572
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 82
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1290 on: December 09, 2016, 10:00:27 PM »
I had an extremely prominent climate scientist relate to me recently that he thought that any advanced models that held a possibility of an "ice-free" September in the arctic within the next 2 decades was stretching it.  He is at UW and directs a major program there with a product that we all use. 

He stated to me unequivocally that there is NO indication that there will be an ice free September within the next 7 years, he was quite sure of himself.

2 decades is 2036. That's stretching it? News to me.

To be clear, a doubling of the FDD loss of last winter and a summer like 2007 or 2012 would be enough to get us close or below the 1M marker at this point. We're probably on our way to beating last winter's warmth records in terms of FDD loss already -- so how much more time do folks think we really have at this point?

Gray-Wolf

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 948
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 131
  • Likes Given: 458
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1291 on: December 09, 2016, 10:22:26 PM »
I used to think I had some idea of how things would go and so how long we had? I'd figured it would be a period of steady ( ish) mins then another 07' like conflagration of weather would 'do in' the last of the ice?

We'd then have 7 or 8 years of Deniers claiming recovery before the next '07' trawled around but that isn't what is going on at all is it?

The ice has been degrading, even through the 'rebound years' ,and it will keep on degrading ( as we are seeing?) until any kind of summer will take the ice?

Bring in a high insolation, 07'-esque June or July and what will we see next year? how low will it go?

KOYAANISQATSI

ko.yaa.nis.katsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
 
VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS

Neven

  • Administrator
  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 9470
    • View Profile
    • Arctic Sea Ice Blog
  • Liked: 1333
  • Likes Given: 617
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1292 on: December 09, 2016, 10:41:01 PM »
Here's a comment from a new member that I didn't release straight away (welcome Cid_Yama, you should be able to post freely now):

I've lurked here for some time, but this is the first time I felt compelled to register and post.

I believe Jim White's talk on Abrupt Climate Change may be pertinent to what has happened this winter.

Quote
"So in a matter of 1 to 2 years, there's a very large change out over the ocean, and as a I said, the only thing we can think of that happens that fast is a change in the sea ice extent ..."


The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1293 on: December 09, 2016, 11:11:10 PM »
Back in 2009 Dr. Barber of Canada, who had gone out to see the ice firsthand, commented on the lack of thick MYI.
Article excerpts,
[ Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought -- and largely failed to find -- a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk.

Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called "rotten ice" -- 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice.

"I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic ... it was very dramatic," he said.


After a long search, Barber's ice breaker finally found a 16-km (10-mile) wide floe of multiyear ice that was around 6 to 8 meters (20-26 feet) thick. But as the crew watched, the floe was hit by a series of waves, and disintegrated in five minutes.]
The point is, maybe the ice has been in worse shape than we thought for a while now. Models derived from satellite images just aren't the same as seeing for oneself.

www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-canada-arctic-idUSTRE59S3LT20091029

"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1294 on: December 09, 2016, 11:14:24 PM »
<snip> Hudson must freeze surely? Bering must freeze some way out from the straights and Okhotsk is tight under the icy blasts flowing out of Asia so surely that must put on ice?<snip>
You may be touching on the last places (Hudson in particular as it is almost fully land-locked) to consistently refreeze in winter with our up-and-coming climate regime.
This space for Rent.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1295 on: December 09, 2016, 11:34:41 PM »
We have all speculated about Hudson Bay lately. Still a lot of warm water there(comparatively).              Posted by johnm33 in the IJIS thread.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Cate

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 199
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1296 on: December 09, 2016, 11:40:35 PM »
Canadian Ice Service weekly report for Dec 5 shows yet more "departure from normal concentration" for Hudson Bay. Click "previous issue" to compare preceding weeks.

http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/cgi-bin/getprod.pl?prodid=WIS54DPTCT&wrap=1&lang=en&q=0

JimboOmega

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 140
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1297 on: December 10, 2016, 12:06:38 AM »
After a long search, Barber's ice breaker finally found a 16-km (10-mile) wide floe of multiyear ice that was around 6 to 8 meters (20-26 feet) thick. But as the crew watched, the floe was hit by a series of waves, and disintegrated in five minutes.]
The point is, maybe the ice has been in worse shape than we thought for a while now. Models derived from satellite images just aren't the same as seeing for oneself.

www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-canada-arctic-idUSTRE59S3LT20091029

Somehow I doubt that 10 miles of ice 20 feet thick disintegrated in *five minutes*.  I think it'd last longer than that in tropical waters.

RoxTheGeologist

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 625
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 188
  • Likes Given: 149
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1298 on: December 10, 2016, 12:15:42 AM »
After a long search, Barber's ice breaker finally found a 16-km (10-mile) wide floe of multiyear ice that was around 6 to 8 meters (20-26 feet) thick. But as the crew watched, the floe was hit by a series of waves, and disintegrated in five minutes.]
The point is, maybe the ice has been in worse shape than we thought for a while now. Models derived from satellite images just aren't the same as seeing for oneself.

www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-canada-arctic-idUSTRE59S3LT20091029

Somehow I doubt that 10 miles of ice 20 feet thick disintegrated in *five minutes*.  I think it'd last longer than that in tropical waters.

I think it broke up rather than melted.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1299 on: December 10, 2016, 12:18:42 AM »
It probably was made that thick through compaction or ridging, as I doubt that a solid piece would do that. You see glaciers calving that come all to pieces. Maybe a matter of timing.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.