The 2017 melting season

[Jim Williams]

could it be that the increased water vapour content of the atmosphere will result in more snow being deposited on high altitude glaciers?

That is the most common WACC (Warm Arctic Cold Continents) theory.  Basically, the theory is that until "General" warming overcomes local conditions the continents will get colder and wetter as the Arctic fails to keep the cold locked up in the far North.

[oren]

Reminder that a recent thread exists somewhere on the forum dealing with snow cover anomalies and new glaciation.

[seaicesailor]

I am liking these weekly CFS forecast visualisations of Tropicaltidbits. Somehow the CFS forecast retains a lot that the ECMWF and GFS forecast for the coming seven days and it is nice to observe some consistency and agreement in a single averaged-values map.
One thing is that a sustained strong winds favoring Fram export.
The second is that, while no above zero temps are forecasted over the Arctic, they indeed will be reached in many locations of Siberia (at brief moments), in agreement with the CFS predicted southerlies and warmer than average temps.
Beaufort sea Anticiclonic and cold for a while. Should be quite sunny though, stable situation all pacific side.

Getting closer to the real melting season so to speak.

[seaicesailor]

Granted this is valid for 5 days most, but I wonder if this is the recurrent configuration Ding was referring to: highs persistent over Greenland Canada and Arctic with lows pulling warmth from the continents (in summer). Just a comment, not sure it is even close :-)

[slow wing]

Attached is a month-by-month gif of the ice coverage maps from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia,
http://www.aari.ru/odata/_d0015.php?lang=1.

The maps are interesting because they track the old ice that has survived at least one melt season - shown in reddish-brown.

One example map was chosen for each month from 2016-10 to 2017-04, with a date around 18th of each month.

Apologies for my poor gif-making skills.

 The gif seems to show a continuing loss of the old ice on the Russian and Atlantic sides that extends in time all the way through to the January 2017 frame. This happened despite new ice completely surrounding the old ice region.

  It is seen that the old ice has been pushed away from the Russian side and also nibbled away at on the Atlantic side - the infamous 'Atlantic kill zone'.

   The pattern by now seems to be a continuation of that movement away from the Russian side. That is now driving a bifurcation, with some of the compressed ice turning left and heading towards the Atlantic side kill zone and the rest turning right towards the Beaufort Sea.

   The latter seems to be the 'Beaufort gyre' setting up due to the recent high pressure systems in the Beaufort. If that continues then this year will again have a wall of old ice between the Beaufort Sea and Central Arctic Basin (CAB), albeit thinner ice than last year.

[Bob Wallace]

could it be that the increased water vapour content of the atmosphere will result in more snow being deposited on high altitude glaciers?

Yes, but with rising temperatures the snowline will retreat further up the mountains.  And as the line rises the area of real estate decreases rapidly.

[subgeometer]

subgeometer

Is there a thread where image retrieval and animation are discussed?

Yes, to the animation part, anyway.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1259.msg89520.html#msg89520
[/quoTigertown

[jdallen]

Look for major drops in extent in the Bering over the next few days.

[jdallen]

Browsing around tonight in worldview, there are hundreds of thousands of KM2 that look like they are right on the edge of vanishing; it's not just the Bering.  If  you look in the Kara, along the margins of the Barents, the Bering, the Okhotsks, Baffin, the Greenland, you will see huge expanses like that shown below. 

This image is from south central Baffin, and the image is about 250,000KM2 total.

[DrTskoul]

Granted this is valid for 5 days most, but I wonder if this is the recurrent configuration Ding was referring to: highs persistent over Greenland Canada and Arctic with lows pulling warmth from the continents (in summer). Just a comment, not sure it is even close :-)

Wayne Davidson's new cold North pole....

[Rick Aster]

Look for major drops in extent in the Bering over the next few days.

Temperatures are rising above freezing all afternoon in Nome, Alaska, maybe not today but for the next seven days in the Weather Underground forecast. https://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Nome%2C+AK Nome should be one of the cooler spots on the Bering Sea coast and the temperature forecast is more than enough to keep the melting trend going. Temperatures at night are not quite cold enough for refreezing and a month after spring equinox, the nights are not very long anyway.

The temperature at Utqiagvik (Barrow), by contrast, might not reach the melting point until well into May. That's the difference between 64 and 71 degrees N.

[gerontocrat]

So much data saying Melt (DMI, Arctic anomaly, Fram export, destruction of  sea ice sheets integrity from multiple observations  etc. etc.). And yet jaxa sea ice decline remains at a glacial pace, and sea ice volume not declining yet.
And still at least 2 weeks before getting April PIOMAS  update. Am I the only one in confusion ?

[Buddy]

The temperature at Utqiagvik (Barrow), by contrast, might not reach the melting point until well into May. That's the difference between 64 and 71 degrees N.

The last several weeks (and maybe more) the Russian side of the Arctic has been where all the warm anomaly's have been hanging out.  There....and in the CAB.  The Canadian/Alaska side of the Arctic has been much cooler.

The graphic below for the upcoming 27th is representative of what HAS been happening over the recent weeks...

[Pragma]

And still at least 2 weeks before getting April PIOMAS  update. Am I the only one in confusion ?

No, you definitely are not. I accept that various methods will differ slightly, but the ones that you mention not only differ a great deal in magnitude but also in trend.

In my simplistic view, any method needs to regularly checked against other lines of evidence and then recalibrate the process or adjust the model. I am sympathetic to the difficulties of making the measurements, but even so, it appears that one or more of the products is not much more than a guess and someone is going to be very embarrassed soon.

Perhaps if error bars were included, then we could see if there is any overlap in the uncertainties. This would reduce the temptation to take any single value as gospel.

As Mark Knopfler said "Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong" :-)

[Tigertown]

Nothing to be confused about, really. It's just dispersion. And remember, if you get to a fork in the road, take the fork.

[pauldry600]

Looking at W Europe next week the Arctic unlocking of the cold seems in place.

Just look at Northern Spain.

Frost in the UK not really strange for this time of year  but as was said previously the melt is dispersing the cold more whereas when its locked in only the Northern parts of the continents have cold.

Its like the world is punctured and all the cold air is going everywhere but since everywhere is larger than somewhere the severity is nowhere.

[oren]

gerontocrat, if you check the regional AMSR2 extent chart at https://14adebb0-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/amsr2/grf/amsr2-extent-regional.png you will see that Barents + Greenland Sea (victims of Fram export) and Baffin (southbound drift) are running high in extent - this is ice on its way to hell - while the Pacific side (Bering, Okhotsk, Chukchi) is running low. The ice is weak, thin and broken but is still covering the same extent. All this setup will have a lot to say when the actual melting season begins (now it's just the very southern edges). Patience will be rewarded unfortunately.

[jdallen]

So much data saying Melt (DMI, Arctic anomaly, Fram export, destruction of  sea ice sheets integrity from multiple observations  etc. etc.). And yet jaxa sea ice decline remains at a glacial pace, and sea ice volume not declining yet.
And still at least 2 weeks before getting April PIOMAS  update. Am I the only one in confusion ?

I think the answer is dispersion, GC.  Less ice, spread more thinly.

[Tigertown]

Lots of thin ice.

[Jim Williams]

So much data saying Melt (DMI, Arctic anomaly, Fram export, destruction of  sea ice sheets integrity from multiple observations  etc. etc.). And yet jaxa sea ice decline remains at a glacial pace, and sea ice volume not declining yet.
And still at least 2 weeks before getting April PIOMAS  update. Am I the only one in confusion ?

I think the answer is dispersion, GC.  Less ice, spread more thinly.

AKA -- Winter Storms.

[subgeometer]

The Bering and Chukchi from April 15-21 with april 19 2016 by way of comparison. Doesn't look good

[Bill Fothergill]

Great chart.  One more idea... fwiw:  If you went 3D and made the z axis the ytd measure.  So the 3D chart grows in depth each day of the year.

Thanks. I've played about a bit with the 3-D idea, but the presentation looks messy.

It seems a bit of a no-brainer to use the Y-axis for the dependent variable (number of days in "lowest 3") and use the X- and Z-axes for each of the independent variables (i.e. the year, and the day/date within year). Swapping the X- & Z-axes obviously radically alters the appearance, but neither looks good.

I've also had a bit of problem trying to implement a stacked display (i.e. showing cumulative lowest, 2nd lowest & 3rd lowest stacked on top of each other) using the 3-D format.

However, I have a cunning plan on how to circumvent this limitation, and will try it out tonight or tomorrow.


Thanks again for the f/b.

[oren]

The Bering and Chukchi from April 15-21 with april 19 2016 by way of comparison. Doesn't look good

Terrible. All heading towards the (Fram) exit.

[iceman]

   ....
   The pattern by now seems to be a continuation of that movement away from the Russian side. That is now driving a bifurcation, with some of the compressed ice turning left and heading towards the Atlantic side kill zone and the rest turning right towards the Beaufort Sea.
   ....

The movement of MYI toward the Atlantic side draws the eye, but "the dog that didn't bark" is the lack of rotation into Beaufort.  (At least my impression - without doing proper y/y comparisons - is that it's much less than normal.)
    Given moderate winds and mixed temperatures for the next week or longer in the general Beaufort Gyre region, it seems likely that area/extent will hold up fairly well in the early melt season. But I have a bad premonition about the effect of melt ponding there.

[Thomas Barlow]

So much data saying Melt (DMI, Arctic anomaly, Fram export, destruction of  sea ice sheets integrity from multiple observations  etc. etc.). And yet jaxa sea ice decline remains at a glacial pace, and sea ice volume not declining yet.
And still at least 2 weeks before getting April PIOMAS  update. Am I the only one in confusion ?

I think the answer is dispersion, GC.  Less ice, spread more thinly.

AKA -- Winter Storms.

Does it make a difference if you just look at the main Arctic Basin?
Are there any charts that try to gauge thickness or volume for just the main Arctic Basin?

Here, below, I have taken out the thickest ice (4-5m) that clings, or is pushed against land mass. Some of that thick ice would probably still be there, even if the Arctic ever opens up in summer, as some say it will some day. And I also deleted most of the ice that forms in all the channels between islands.

A lot of that ice in channels, and the ice packed up against the land mass, could still be there even if the central Arctic Basin eventually starts to break up. So this may be a more realistic comparison, reguarding the major icepack, and reguarding what is essentially going on, that counts the most in assessing the state of the central icepack.

On the left 21 April 2012, and on the right 20 April 2017.

http://polarportal.dk/en/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/sea-ice-extent/

[Tigertown]

NSIDC SIE has been on a downward track of late.

2017,    04,  12,     13.911
2017,    04,  13,     13.785
2017,    04,  14,     13.717
2017,    04,  15,     13.740
2017,    04,  16,     13.704
2017,    04,  17,     13.738
2017,    04,  18,     13.667
2017,    04,  19,     13.624
2017,    04,  20,     13.592

[meddoc]

This opening is very unusual up that high. I suspect warm SSTs and atlantification.

[cesium62]

On the left 21 April 2012, and on the right 20 April 2017.

2012 was not particularly thin ice (compared to other recent years) in mid-april.  Yes, whatever weather condition cleared the ice out in 2012 re-occurs in 2017, the ice is going to have a big problem.  2011 and 2016 might be better comparisons for relatively thin ice in April and a low extent in September?

[oren]

This opening is very unusual up that high. I suspect warm SSTs and atlantification.

meddoc your suspicion is wrong, please read the "Nares Strait" thread in the Greenland section. There is an almost-constant surface flow from the Lincoln Sea southwest down the strait. When the thick ice gets stuck at the entrance it may form an "arch", as happened this year (more often an arch is created in Kane Basin at the other end of the strait). The surface flow then keeps clearing the area below the arch.
Also search the web for the "North Water Polynya".

[meddoc]

This opening is very unusual up that high. I suspect warm SSTs and atlantification.

meddoc your suspicion is wrong, please read the "Nares Strait" thread in the Greenland section. There is an almost-constant surface flow from the Lincoln Sea southwest down the strait. When the thick ice gets stuck at the entrance it may form an "arch", as happened this year (more often an arch is created in Kane Basin at the other end of the strait). The surface flow then keeps clearing the area below the arch.
Also search the web for the "North Water Polynya".

I'm sorry I don't care about peer- reviewed Articles anymore.
Common sense and basic phsyics knowledge seem to be enough to understand, open water above 75 North this time of Year is not an indicator of a coming Ice Age.

[romett1]

Latest temp anomalies forecast for Apr 23 - Apr 29 (GFS, Climate Reanalyzer). Pacific side and Russian coast still warm, next week there is also "heat wave" over Baffin Bay, Greenland and Fram Strait. This is interesting, because temps are above freezing over Fram Strait, I just remember how much damage they (high temps) did once in winter.

[seaicesailor]

A close-up of the evolution of SST anomalies in Bering sea during past 30 days or so (from the DMI SST anomalies maps). Insolation and ocean currents make a difference there already.

[Thomas Barlow]

On the left 21 April 2012, and on the right 20 April 2017.

2012 was not particularly thin ice (compared to other recent years) in mid-april.  Yes, whatever weather condition cleared the ice out in 2012 re-occurs in 2017, the ice is going to have a big problem.  2011 and 2016 might be better comparisons for relatively thin ice in April and a low extent in September?

Here is the comparison for 2016 .
Are there any charts that try to gauge thickness or volume for just the main Arctic Basin?
All the charts take into account all the channels and east Greenland, and may not say much about state of main Arctic Basin icepack.
( I took out the thick ice that is pushed up against land masses, as I think some of that would be there anyway, even in a future meltdown, and doesn't tell us too much about the state of the overall icepack in the Arctic Basin. And I took out ice in channels and Fram export, as those are not really part of the main state of the Arctic basin icepack)
I'd say 2017 looks in worse shape than 2016?

[iceman]

So much data saying Melt (DMI, Arctic anomaly, Fram export, destruction of  sea ice sheets integrity from multiple observations  etc. etc.). And yet jaxa sea ice decline remains at a glacial pace, and sea ice volume not declining yet.
And still at least 2 weeks before getting April PIOMAS  update. Am I the only one in confusion ?

I think the answer is dispersion, GC.  Less ice, spread more thinly.

... Barents + Greenland Sea (victims of Fram export) and Baffin (southbound drift) are running high in extent - this is ice on its way to hell - while the Pacific side (Bering, Okhotsk, Chukchi) is running low. The ice is weak, thin and broken but is still covering the same extent....

Looks as if dispersion in Baffin/Newfoundland is now being slowed or interrupted; likewise for Greenland Sea next week.  Meanwhile there are two other reasons to expect continued slow area/extent declines for a little while longer:
   - cold anomalies over northern Canada, warm anomalies in the central basin (haven't seen any discussion of AO index lately - maybe in a different forum thread?
   - lack of heat and moisture advection on the Atlantic side, as the lows have been mostly meandering farther south rather than intensifying and moving northward past Iceland
     Net, no cliff formation in sight.  We'll have to track melt ponding and concentration to predict whether it arrives in May or June.

[Neven]

This opening is very unusual up that high. I suspect warm SSTs and atlantification.

It's less unusual than one would think. I believe in the past decade it has happened 2-3 times before. Google 'Nares' and 'Patrick Lockerby' (who occasionally posts here as logicman).

And peruse the Nares Strait thread. And I've written about Nares regularly on the ASIB (and would this year as well if it wasn't for the sabbatical).

[Neven]

Here is the comparison for 2016 .
Are there any charts that try to gauge thickness or volume for just the main Arctic Basin?
All the charts take into account all the channels and east Greenland, and may not say much about state of main Arctic Basin icepack.
( I took out the thick ice that is pushed up against land masses, as I think some of that would be there anyway, even in a future meltdown, and doesn't tell us too much about the state of the overall icepack in the Arctic Basin. And I took out ice in channels and Fram export, as those are not really part of the main state of the Arctic basin icepack)
I'd say 2017 looks in worse shape than 2016?

Nice comparisons, TB. It's always good to compare years within one dataset, but keep in mind that of all modelled volume distribution maps (besides ACNFS and PIOMAS) this one from DMI is deemed least trustworthy. And I forgot new player ADS/JAXA, which doesn't seem to be very trustworthy either.

But again, it never hurts to compare years, even within not so reliable datasets.

[Thomas Barlow]

This compares thickness, for certain thickness ranges only.
Between 2016 and 2017.
(I'm guessing most sources out there are just approximate, with a wide margin of error?)

[seaicesailor]

Interesting that this polynya that appeared about 1 week ago in ESS is about the only one within the Arctic proper not showing signs of refreeze. Why there?
Being April 22 big chances it will stay open.

[cesium62]

This compares thickness, for certain thickness ranges only.
Between 2016 and 2017.
(I'm guessing most sources out there are just approximate, with a wide margin of error?)

Thanks.  Fun stuff.

[cesium62]

Interesting that this polynya that appeared about 1 week ago in ESS is about the only one within the Arctic proper not showing signs of refreeze. Why there?
Being April 22 big chances it will stay open.

Wipneus' ESS amsr2 extent graph suggests the ESS doesn't typically start melting and opening up until mid-May.  I would have guessed that suggested a reasonable chance of refreeze or a change in wind direction that would close the opening?

[Hyperion]

Interesting that this polynya that appeared about 1 week ago in ESS is about the only one within the Arctic proper not showing signs of refreeze. Why there?
Being April 22 big chances it will stay open.

I'm afraid you are seeing the result of a week long surge of warm nth pacific water coming thru Bering and rushing along the ESAS at up to 100km per day.

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),Reference_Labels(hidden),Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines&t=2017-04-22&z=3&v=-2342667.648686028,1311881.675158471,-1294091.6486860283,1843337.675158471&ab=off&as=2017-04-15&ae=2017-04-22&av=4&al=true

[Hyperion]

Not sure why that gif won't play

[Archimid]

I thought it was caused by warm and humid wind intrusion that started the 13th of april. The warmth of that event is still lingering in the Arctic.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/04/13/2100Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-166.03,64.59,1548

If you follow that heat you'll notice how it gets in the arctic and then head north. I think that wind had the effect of pushing (melting and compression?) the ice and raising the temperatures in the Arctic. If you keep following it probably helped export a bit.

[Chuck Yokota]

Interesting that this polynya that appeared about 1 week ago in ESS is about the only one within the Arctic proper not showing signs of refreeze. Why there?
Being April 22 big chances it will stay open.

That area is above -10C, so wave and wind activity will prevent freezing.

[Hyperion]

Lets try a homemade one rather than a NASA nasty.
Its quite stunning how fast the current is surging along there. I know that often warmer salty water slides in on the bottom through the Bering straight, while it can even be flowing out on the surface. Certainly if its Pacific water making it all the way along there, the offshore wind would blow the fresher lens away and help it surface.

Still not playing. is there a size limit?
I guess yes. 

[oren]

Thanks for the animation. ~700 pixel width is the trick.
And, are you sure it's a current and not wind-driven? If it's a current it's really bad news.

[Hyperion]

A close-up of the evolution of SST anomalies in Bering sea during past 30 days or so (from the DMI SST anomalies maps). Insolation and ocean currents make a difference there already.

Its less than 50m deep all along there. Whether or not its wind driven, its a current. And as SIS pointed out with his excellent animation a few days ago....
I think you are right about trouble. Big burst of warm SST was charging up the Russian coast for Bering.

[JayW]

Beaufort April 12-23, the gyre began gyrating, but has slowed as the Beaufort looks like it's importing sea ice over the past few days.


Suomi VIIRS imagery

http://feeder.gina.alaska.edu

[romett1]

Its quite stunning how fast the current is surging along there.

Thanks Hyperion. This must be current, because wind direction has been towards Pacific. I compared Apr 22 this year vs 2016. Not the best situation and we know that temps are mild over next 7 days there. Also looked long-term forecast (CFS), first week of May still large positive anomalies over Chukchi Sea and ESS coast. Images: Worldview.

[seaicesailor]

Lets try a homemade one rather than a NASA nasty.
Its quite stunning how fast the current is surging along there. I know that often warmer salty water slides in on the bottom through the Bering straight, while it can even be flowing out on the surface. Certainly if its Pacific water making it all the way along there, the offshore wind would blow the fresher lens away and help it surface.

Still not playing. is there a size limit?
I guess yes. 

Nice animation. Yes I agree on the surge of Pacific water. ACNFS has been showing a stream toward the bering Strait since March, so probably this has been running under the ice for longer than a week, but since Hycom ACNFS animations are not really clear on that, this is just a suspicion that the first pulse of Pacific water has come really early this year. Which is aggravated by a anomalously warmer atmospheric situation and a really crappy ice to start with! Thin and broken.

The CFS long-range prediction as wonderfully represented in Levi Cowan's site (tropicaltidbits.com) shows a Siberia anomalously warm for the month of May. Last month it predicted the emergence of Beaufort high pressure many days in advance when the Arctic was completely dominated by lows, it was surprising how well it predicted it. Keeping an eye on these forecasts, we'll see if they serve during summer.

I believe the CFS-v2 model has been recently changed (impacting for instance El Niño predictions), but others here may know more about that.