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numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #400 on: November 30, 2017, 11:16:24 PM »
Hudson Bay's refreeze over the last week has been one of the earliest on record over the past twenty years it seems. Should be mostly frozen by 12/5-12/10!

Per the ice atlas, that's about normal -- of course we haven't had normal in a while:
Quote
In late October, the ice begins to form along the northwestern shores of the Bay. Some years there may also be a simultaneous development in the cold waters near Foxe Channel. In November, the ice thickens as prevailing winds move it east and southeast. In December the Bay becomes covered with thickening first-year ice.

It's well above normal in Iqaluit through the end of the forecast period, with the lows being warmer than the normal high, and lots of snow.

Reanalyzer shows an angry hot Canadian Arctic. The only exception is the West side of Hudson Bay, which is slightly cooler (and outright cold inland).

I just noticed that the cci-reanalyzer doesn't have a border between NWT and Nunavut. They're up to date on the climate, but not the politics, it seems ;)

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #401 on: December 01, 2017, 10:30:37 AM »
Beaufort Gyre forecast to become re-established in early December, though centered somewhat off to the northwest, along with Fram export. (From Arctic16.gif of NOAA REB plots at ESRL; speeds shown in m/s, direction with arrows.) The Nares cross-post image shows a Fram export from 27 Sept to 30 Nov 2017.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,176.msg135241.html#msg135241

« Last Edit: December 02, 2017, 11:43:54 AM by A-Team »

Neven

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #402 on: December 01, 2017, 02:02:25 PM »
Finally some Fram export. It's been a while.
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #403 on: December 01, 2017, 03:04:03 PM »
Beaufort Gyre forecast to become re-established in early December along with Fram export. (From Arctic16.gif of NOAA REB plots at ESRL; speeds shown in m/s, direction with arrows.)

Interesting observation.
Didn't last year (winter) characterize by an almost total lack of Beaufort Gyre due to the train of cyclones coming from the Atlantic, imposing a general cyclonic circulation affecting the ice drift as well?...
In this sense, we may be heading for a more "normal" winter. Once the Chukchi sea freezes, of course.

A-Team

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #404 on: December 01, 2017, 03:50:40 PM »
It seems the Mercator Ocean ice thickness scheme is quite effective at displaying export (regardless of whether the thickness display is accurate). They offer a daily animation back to 01 Aug 16 that can be viewed (but not saved out at size as it takes 489 gif frames) at the link below, best in full screen mode with the manual arrow setting. Right, export picked up in November 2016 as well.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20160801/20171130/7/1
« Last Edit: December 02, 2017, 11:48:25 AM by A-Team »

numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #405 on: December 01, 2017, 04:49:13 PM »
Despite the warmth, Frobisher Bay is freezing up a bit today. There's little blobs of ice out in the bay, with a cap of snow on each.

The winds are calm so it's hard to tell the difference between glassy water or glassy thin ice. But it seems warm for the sea surface to be freezing, and it was snowing last night, so if there's no snow it's probably not ice.

The 5-day forecast is mostly overcast, and forecast lows 5 degrees above the average highs, as it has been for more than a week. There's one clear night in the forecast, but even it isn't expected to get cold.

A-Team

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #406 on: December 01, 2017, 08:01:55 PM »
Here are the 2017 changes in sea water temperature according to Mercator Ocean, at 34m and 0m depths, from early May when the warm water intrusions start through today when it still persists in both the Bering Strait/Chukchi and Svalbard/SZ region.

The thirty-four meter depth is well within reach of the bottom of the ice provided there is mixing from waves and other mechanisms. MercOcean also offers four deeper layers; while these are interesting, little visible change occurred over this time frame.

Climate change modeling traditionally prioritizes equatorial meteorology, with Arctic ice and its oceanography nominally coupled in but largely belittled (along with Arctic methane). More recently though, influxes of Bering Sea and Atlantic Waters are coming to be seen as important drivers of ice trends, with weather primarily contributing seasonal variability, ice pack motion and moisture intrusions.

Water has vastly greater heat capacity and heat conductivity than air and, given some mixing of stratification, has adequate potential to melt off Arctic ice, in effect permanently because of thermal inertia. This is also being argued for interfaces with ice shelves and tidewater glaciers in both Greenland and Antarctica.

Given the drastic factual revisions that came about this fall from OMG (Oceans Melting Greenland), I do have to wonder about the value of previous 'coupled' model predictions for Greenland's contributions to sea level rise  -- complete nonsense all along but possibly a lingering source of misinformation and complacency for policy makers.  https://tinyurl.com/yc4uvszc
« Last Edit: December 01, 2017, 08:07:36 PM by A-Team »

bbr2314

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #407 on: December 01, 2017, 09:20:06 PM »
Hudson Bay's refreeze over the last week has been one of the earliest on record over the past twenty years it seems. Should be mostly frozen by 12/5-12/10!

Per the ice atlas, that's about normal -- of course we haven't had normal in a while:
Quote
In late October, the ice begins to form along the northwestern shores of the Bay. Some years there may also be a simultaneous development in the cold waters near Foxe Channel. In November, the ice thickens as prevailing winds move it east and southeast. In December the Bay becomes covered with thickening first-year ice.

It's well above normal in Iqaluit through the end of the forecast period, with the lows being warmer than the normal high, and lots of snow.

Reanalyzer shows an angry hot Canadian Arctic. The only exception is the West side of Hudson Bay, which is slightly cooler (and outright cold inland).

I just noticed that the cci-reanalyzer doesn't have a border between NWT and Nunavut. They're up to date on the climate, but not the politics, it seems ;)

Actually, I believe Hudson Bay is one of the only peripheral regions that has *not* experienced a catastrophic delay in the onset of freezing in recent years -- things have remained fairly steady, and its endurance has also been about constant.

With increased heat flux in autumn, it might be worth considering differentiating between ice regions that were always multi-yr vs. first year. Obviously large swaths of the Arctic are now transitioning, but outside of Foxe Basin, Hudson Bay has always been entirely FYI (to my knowledge).

The impact of the additional summertime heat could be for more convective autumnal weather which has a net impact of allowing earlier refreeze, as the dissipation of accumulated heat occurs faster thanks to the massive LPs that have been forming. This does nothing to alleviate the burden on the multi-yr ice (in fact, destroying it through winds + waves), but it does allow FYI to form faster when temperatures get sufficiently cold enough. In the case of HB this year, the refreeze has been more rapid than normal in terms of its onset to where it is now (check out the last week on EOSDIS!).

This would also help explain why the Sea of Okhotsk has also seen record numbers in recent yrs. It is not each and every year of course, but these distinctions are worth considering.

What happens if at some point we end up with MYI in Okhotsk + HB and only FYI in the CAB?

A-Team

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #408 on: December 02, 2017, 03:18:05 PM »
Here is a closer look at thickness and velocity of Fram export this fall. The last frame shows velocities (Greenland inset) increasing from 0.3 m/s up to 0.8 m/s (which is 70 km/day) in the south; these have only picked up since November The distance scale is given by separation of the two latitudes, 555 km. Note the forecast represent a ten-day jump from the reanalysis series.

The ice being exported now is up to 1.75m thick. Various other ice thickness resources are available: RASM-ESRL, Piomas, SMOS, Cryosat and so on. It's unclear how accurate any of them are on absolute thickness in the Fram and whether they are truly independent or all rely on the same satellites for their daily reset. However the resurgence of export per se could be verified by floe motion as seen in Sentinel satellites. Wipneus provides a regular estimate of daily export volume which should be available for November soon.

The overall motion resembles that of a viscous liquid (poorly mixed paints) that is being squeezed out (like toothpaste) through Svalbard and NE Greenland from bulk motion of the ice pack which in the later frames is that of a classical Beaufort Gyre coupled with the central Transarctic Drift. Once past the Nord station peninsula, the ice gets caught up in an accelerating southbound Greenland Current and never rejoins the main ice pack.

Technical note: The RASM-ESRL provides a smoother forecast than MercOcean which discards intermediate days. The version below uses a continuous ColorBrewer palette posterized later in Gimp with an inset whole ocean that is easily made in Panoply by resetting 'visible radius' and plot size. Posterization is a form of contouring that makes feature tracking more certain. However RASM-ESRL's mapping domain does not extend far enough south to pick up enough of the export train. Its forecast suggests coming export will be from Svarlbard-marginal ice rather than thicker CAA-marginal.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20170927/20171130/5/1 MO velocity animation
« Last Edit: December 02, 2017, 09:55:21 PM by A-Team »

numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #409 on: December 02, 2017, 11:23:14 PM »
Quote
Despite the warmth, Frobisher Bay is freezing up a bit today. There's little blobs of ice out in the bay, with a cap of snow on each.

Well that went quickly.

Yesterday:


Today:


What happens if at some point we end up with MYI in Okhotsk + HB and only FYI in the CAB?

How would you get MYI in Hudson Bay? Temperatures are higher than historical, and historically there was none.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #410 on: December 03, 2017, 01:14:47 AM »
Quote
Despite the warmth, Frobisher Bay is freezing up a bit today. There's little blobs of ice out in the bay, with a cap of snow on each.

Well that went quickly.

Yesterday:


Today:


What happens if at some point we end up with MYI in Okhotsk + HB and only FYI in the CAB?

How would you get MYI in Hudson Bay? Temperatures are higher than historical, and historically there was none.

You would need a cooler repeat of summer 2017, where snow is retained along much of the shoreline til the end of June or July. If we see the current snowfall feedback make much more progress, this will not be unfeasible (explaining why 2017 was so anomalously snowy).

Even though extent has gone into lag mode, volume continues to perform phenomenally and historically well:





Hudson Bay SSTs are largely a function of whether the surrounding land mass is snow covered. When it is, ice forms and it becomes a source for cold air. When it isn't, the ice is unprotected and mostly melts out (exception being parts of Foxe Basin).

If Hudson Bay begins behaving more like Foxe Basin -- which is much more protected, but also only a hair to the north -- it is not unfeasible for MYI to begin accumulating in the most protected parts. Historically, this must have occurred, the question is, how marginal were the conditions, and does our worsening open water/moisture flux conundrum make it more likely?

Ice Shieldz

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #411 on: December 03, 2017, 10:16:07 AM »
Below see precipitable water for the months of October & November averaged from 65°N–90°N. 2017 also came in second from 80°N–90°N but it was closer to the rest of pack.

Niall Dollard

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #412 on: December 03, 2017, 12:50:04 PM »
Ask a Climatologist: Chukchi Sea ice at record low

Quote


The Chukchi Sea should be almost fully covered in sea ice by now. Instead, it’s mostly open water.

Brian Brettschneider, with our Ask a Climatologist segment, says the ice coverage right now in the Chukchi is typical for mid-October, not late-November.

Not really any surprise then that November 2017 was record mildest at  UtqiaÄ¡vik/Barrow.

Edit : Credit to Rick Thoman
« Last Edit: December 05, 2017, 04:42:33 PM by Niall Dollard »

A-Team

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #413 on: December 03, 2017, 12:54:49 PM »
Here are the sea surface heights along with salinity and currents for November and early December with emphasis on the Beaufort, Chukchi and Bering Strait regions according to Mercator Ocean.

Technical note: Mercator Ocean puts out two forecasts: for today and for 9 days out. These are stored in a special directory that contains a /9/ in its url. So far so good, but then tomorrow they will overwrite today's forecast with re-analysis and so on, in effect deleting all forecasts over time even though they maintain a separate duplicate directory for re-analysis only!

In other words, to see how MercOcean is doing with forecast skill, it is necessary to save out the 9-day for each of their 18 products and wait nine days so they can be compared with hindcast (~observation). Of course we have no real idea how accurate this thickness product or any other really is this late in the year.


The 9-day ice thickness forecast is archived below. It is not actually saying the Chukchi will be frozen over, only that the ice there will be less than 0.45 m thick (left triangle extension on scale bar). This would appear to be human error in scale configuration because accurate 0.0m to 0.5m thickness is a speciality of readily available SMOS products.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 08:38:45 PM by A-Team »

Hyperion

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #414 on: December 03, 2017, 08:53:51 PM »
Quote
What happens if at some point we end up with MYI in Okhotsk + HB and only FYI in the CAB?

How would you get MYI in Hudson Bay? Temperatures are higher than historical, and historically there was none.

You would need a cooler repeat of summer 2017, where snow is retained along much of the shoreline til the end of June or July. If we see the current snowfall feedback make much more progress, this will not be unfeasible (explaining why 2017 was so anomalously snowy).

Even though extent has gone into lag mode, volume continues to perform phenomenally and historically well:


Well it may not technically be "historically" but its starting to look like the arctic ocean may well have de-iced and Greenland succumbed to a runaway collapse scenario of marine ice sheet cliff instability in the last 13ka. Its now being admitted that this happened in west Antarctica about 10000 BC, with the cliff fragment keel gouges they've found on the sea floor. This would explain all those ancient maps of Antarctica, and fresh mammoth remains in the new Siberian islands etc.

So if Greenland goes into a runaway structural failure of ice cliffs getting higher and higher as they  crumble (100m above the waterline is the limit for ice structurally apparently). Compounded by warm salty water rotting out the legs of the ice sheet, so allowing periodic large block slump events to flush out the bergs. Then the nth Atlantic could flood with giant bergs, turning over the gulfstream south of Newfoundland, and a full Warm Arctic, Cold Continent event could occur until (and if) the stored thermal energy in the arctic oceans upper km or so can dissipate.

I guess that multiyear ice in Hudson and Okhotsk while the Arctic is blue year round would not look so strange in such a "Final Dryas" event
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Neven

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #415 on: December 03, 2017, 10:21:59 PM »
Here are November surface air temperature graphs for the Arctic as a whole, and for the four sides of the Arctic (the map shows distribution):
« Last Edit: December 03, 2017, 10:32:16 PM by Neven »
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #416 on: December 04, 2017, 02:50:00 AM »
Four equal quadrants, I see. (Forgive me if you don't see them as being equal: I'm not wearing my glasses at the moment, and it might be relevant that I am an American.)
 :D :-\ ::)
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Neven

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #417 on: December 04, 2017, 11:00:08 AM »
Four equal quadrants, I see. (Forgive me if you don't see them as being equal: I'm not wearing my glasses at the moment, and it might be relevant that I am an American.)
 :D :-\ ::)

The American quadrant is the biggest!

Hmm, maybe I should make them equal in size, but I'm not sure how that looks geographically (especially Pacific)...
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #418 on: December 04, 2017, 05:04:41 PM »
Nice summary of extreme warmth for the Alaskan Arctic coast today by Bob Henson [edit: by Christopher Burt]:

Quote
November 2017 averaged 17.2°F in Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, a new monthly record—besting the previous record of 15.3°F established in November 1950—and some 16.4° above average. This was also the second month of the year with a record-high average temperature, the other being this past July with a 46.0°F monthly average (the fourth highest reading observed in any month on record).

Winters in Utqiaġvik have seen a dramatic warming over the past 10 years, as Figure 1 below illustrates. In fact, it has not just been the winters. As of November 30, the average in Utqiagvik for 2017 stands at 19.5°. That value will surely drop once the upcoming cold of December is factored in, but if December temperatures are near or above average, then 2017 will still end up as the second warmest year on record in Utqiaġvik, behind only 2016 (which averaged 18.9°F). As long as this year ranks in the top eight, as seems very likely, then eight of the warmest years on record for Utqiaġvik will have occurred in just the past 10 years....[lots more]
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/amazing-autumn-alaskas-north-slope-record-warmth-record-low-sea-ice-extent
« Last Edit: December 04, 2017, 08:01:07 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #419 on: December 04, 2017, 05:51:03 PM »
Four equal quadrants, I see. (Forgive me if you don't see them as being equal: I'm not wearing my glasses at the moment, and it might be relevant that I am an American.)
 :D :-\ ::)

The American quadrant is the biggest!

Hmm, maybe I should make them equal in size, but I'm not sure how that looks geographically (especially Pacific)...
Why not making the Pacific region larger, even if it overlaps other regions. When I think on the Pacific side (and I believe many people here too) I think on a much broader region including most of the Beaufort sea, reaching Amundsen Gulf on one side, and taking on the other side part of the ESS as well (almost reaching the New Siberian Islands).
In other words 120W to 150E,
clockwise
around the pole
north pole

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #420 on: December 04, 2017, 05:53:01 PM »
Thanks for the hat tip, A-Team!  Credit for the article actually goes to ace weather historian Christopher Burt (author of "Extreme Weather"), working closely with Rick Thoman, NOAA/NWS Alaska Region.

--Bob

Nice summary of extreme warmth for the Alaskan Arctic coast today by Bob Henson:

Quote
November 2017 averaged 17.2°F in Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, a new monthly record—besting the previous record of 15.3°F established in November 1950—and some 16.4° above average. This was also the second month of the year with a record-high average temperature, the other being this past July with a 46.0°F monthly average (the fourth highest reading observed in any month on record).

Winters in Utqiaġvik have seen a dramatic warming over the past 10 years, as Figure 1 below illustrates. In fact, it has not just been the winters. As of November 30, the average in Utqiagvik for 2017 stands at 19.5°. That value will surely drop once the upcoming cold of December is factored in, but if December temperatures are near or above average, then 2017 will still end up as the second warmest year on record in Utqiaġvik, behind only 2016 (which averaged 18.9°F). As long as this year ranks in the top eight, as seems very likely, then eight of the warmest years on record for Utqiaġvik will have occurred in just the past 10 years....[lots more]
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/amazing-autumn-alaskas-north-slope-record-warmth-record-low-sea-ice-extent

numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #421 on: December 04, 2017, 05:56:03 PM »
Last post, written Saturday, I said Frobisher Bay had *finally* frozen over.

This morning I wake up to blue water on the bay. A weak storm blew in, with mild temperatures. Currently -2 C at the airport. There was a forecast risk of freezing rain, but that appears to be gone in the most recent forecast.

Granted, this is a highly variable time of the year. The normal high is -15, while the record highs are above freezing. Still, we're on our second or third week of consistently well-above-average temperatures.

Had the ice lasted, it would have been covered by quite a lot of snow. It was beautiful light fluffy powder on the trails yesterday; that'll have been blown down to the low points -- such as the bay (I can see a lot more rock out there).

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #422 on: December 04, 2017, 09:15:22 PM »
My question never be answered in a german forum, maybe the question is to complicated, because there are so many factors.
Lets take a scenario.
Lets take the same condition, that occur 20 years agon.
Now  lets replace the arctic ocean water with a fluid with a much lower freezing point.
I have to do this to look for the effect of  ic in the energy flux.
So we have the case, that after low ice minima, ice is growing.
So it seems (at  least on the surface) that the extra energy is lost due to later refreezing, lower insulation etc pp.
Now the question.
What would be the temperature of the arctic ocean say for the nieveau of 1980, if the freezing point of water would be 20 degree lower.
This question is intersting.
Would the ocean be much warmer, no, if so, there would be a massive positive feedback and ice would dissapear faster and faster.
But also this feedback is different at different north, at n80 it may be the case, that ice was warming over the year, but at n 70 it was cooling.
Every discussion is difficult, because arguments of higher temperatures and higher ohc are named, but of course this is the case is arctic is flued with warmer air and the temperatures are higher in general.
The question is more like if there is a decent negative feedback, so that open water or a higher energy input in the arctic at least at n80 has a higher radiaton in winter then the less albedo can compensate.
The only option would be  something like a quicker cooling surface, that outperform the more heat due to summer, but deeper water is warming, so that ohc is still rising.
I dont know, what happens if water gets like an extra heat in summer. After refreeze is the Temperature delta bigger, so that deeper water is warming or is it like.
Ice got later and growth is slower, that also means there is more heat goint to space and also deeper water could adjust.
I dont know.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #423 on: December 04, 2017, 10:05:00 PM »
My question never be answered in a german forum, maybe the question is to complicated, because there are so many factors.
Lets take a scenario.
Lets take the same condition, that occur 20 years agon.
Now  lets replace the arctic ocean water with a fluid with a much lower freezing point.
I have to do this to look for the effect of  ic in the energy flux.
So we have the case, that after low ice minima, ice is growing.
So it seems (at  least on the surface) that the extra energy is lost due to later refreezing, lower insulation etc pp.
Now the question.
What would be the temperature of the arctic ocean say for the nieveau of 1980, if the freezing point of water would be 20 degree lower.
This question is intersting.
Would the ocean be much warmer, no, if so, there would be a massive positive feedback and ice would dissapear faster and faster.
But also this feedback is different at different north, at n80 it may be the case, that ice was warming over the year, but at n 70 it was cooling.
Every discussion is difficult, because arguments of higher temperatures and higher ohc are named, but of course this is the case is arctic is flued with warmer air and the temperatures are higher in general.
The question is more like if there is a decent negative feedback, so that open water or a higher energy input in the arctic at least at n80 has a higher radiaton in winter then the less albedo can compensate.
The only option would be  something like a quicker cooling surface, that outperform the more heat due to summer, but deeper water is warming, so that ohc is still rising.
I dont know, what happens if water gets like an extra heat in summer. After refreeze is the Temperature delta bigger, so that deeper water is warming or is it like.
Ice got later and growth is slower, that also means there is more heat goint to space and also deeper water could adjust.
I dont know.

while i'm not able to answer your question i thought to add the idea that even if all surplus heat will be lost to space, which i don't believe because some of the heat is stored at depth, the later re-freeze will result in thinner ice (less time to build ) and in the process we shall have earlier breakup/melt under same conditions while we had bad melting conditions recently so that the described feedback was somehow not showing. sorry if that's not relevant but it came to my mind while reading your post.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #424 on: December 04, 2017, 10:54:14 PM »
My question never be answered in a german forum, maybe the question is to complicated, because there are so many factors.

It's an interesting question, but if the answer is so complicated that a lot of people share their thoughts, the thread will go heavily off-topic. So maybe ask somewhere else, or open a new thread. Unless someone has a quick answer, but I doubt it.  :)
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #425 on: December 05, 2017, 12:31:11 AM »
Quote
credit for Alaskan historic data goes to C Burt and R Thoman
Duly noted and welcome aboard, Bob!

We're hoping you can explain what's going on with the late freeze of the Chukchi this fall -- is it warm air advected from the south, a La Nina effect that will continue, a one-off intrusion of Bering Sea water, a persistent water vapor/cloud local greenhouse effect, a hangover from last year's thin ice, wind or Ekman mixing up of surface water, just continuing trend with adverse natural variability, or all of the above in some hopelessly complex inter-coupled way?

In any event, the Chukchi has crossed the 'seasonally open' threshold, having been open for nearly 8 months this year. It's missed 3 months of the freezing season in terms of ice thickening. While it's only a piece of the larger Arctic Ocean, it seems the latter's future is eroding via its two portals and along its eastern Siberian periphery.

The first graphic below compares Dec 2nd of 2017 with 2013-2016. The open water ratios to 2013 baseline (pixel counts from UH AMSR2 3.125 km which include some Bering Sea) suggest the 2017 lag in freeze-up is becoming most unusual with no end in sight (per MercOcean or RASM-ESRL ten day forecasts, not shown).

The second graphic compares 2017 to 2016 from the 10 Sep minimum to 03 Dec. The lower images show daily differences which sometimes help visualize pauses and even retreats in ice coverage. Sea ice at 100% concentration is shown in pale green.

Note: all my animations are public domain with permission granted to reproduce if credited with link to Neven's sea ice forum.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2017, 10:38:47 AM by A-Team »

Shared Humanity

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #426 on: December 05, 2017, 02:45:38 AM »
That is one scary chart with the inflection point in the 1990's. Clearly something has changed and the change appears to be persistent, if not permanent.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #427 on: December 05, 2017, 11:48:54 AM »
Quote
one scary chart
Presumably an objective rationale for picking the breakpoint in the two linear regressions?

The animation below shows the Chukchi forecast in terms of concentration (top) and thickness (reflected) out to 14 Dec 17. It is closing in but still not frozen over. The RASM-ESRL forecast area does not extend into the Bering Sea.

The inset shows 2012 from 01-15 Jan 13 when UH AMSR2 archive next becomes available. Open water, shown in yellow, persisted into January that year. In fact it's hard to tell whether the dates are in order or running backwards.

We have not focused too much here on decline of sea ice in the Bering and Barents seas as it seems a 'given' that the ice there will be farther along in retreat trends than the more northern Arctic Ocean. However that's not the case for the Bering Sea according to a time series going back to 1850.

A database for depicting Arctic sea ice variations back to 1850
JE Walsh et al
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2016.12195.x/full open source
http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/essays_mcnutt.html Bering Sea overview

Quote
Arctic sea ice data from a variety of historical sources have been synthesized into a database extending back to 1850 with monthly time-resolution. The synthesis procedure includes interpolation to a uniform grid and an analog-based estimation of ice concentrations in areas of no data. The consolidated database shows that there is no precedent as far back as 1850 for the 21st century's minimum ice extent of sea ice on the pan-Arctic scale. A regional-scale exception to this statement is the Bering Sea. The rate of retreat since the 1990s is also unprecedented and especially large in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Decadal and multidecadal variations have occurred in some regions, but their magnitudes are smaller than that of the recent ice loss. Interannual variability is prominent in all regions and will pose a challenge to sea ice prediction efforts.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2017, 03:37:41 PM by A-Team »

snrjon

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #428 on: December 05, 2017, 01:00:02 PM »
That is one scary chart with the inflection point in the 1990's. Clearly something has changed and the change appears to be persistent, if not permanent.

Hi there, I'm a newbie in posting, though lurking and trying to learn for some time. I find the information on this forum fascinating, and I think the graphics provide quite outstanding postings!

I was interested though to see the Barrow temp history brought up as an example of climate change. AFAIK Barrow is well characterised in the literature (Hinkel et al 2003) as a winter urban heat island, with a population that has grown from 300 mainly subsistence inhabitants to over 4000 "western lifestyle" over the length of the record.

[url]http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.971/abstract/[url]

Undoubtedly the ice extent in early winter in the Chukchi has significantly reduced in recent years, but is the Barrow temperature record change caused by development rather than mirroring the sea ice pattern?

If the Hinkel et al 2003 study has been superseded I would be interested to hear about it.

Niall Dollard

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #429 on: December 05, 2017, 04:14:08 PM »
The Bering Sea Ice is a bit of an oddity. Probably very storm related. Some interesting comments here from the NWS Anchorage, Sea Ice outlook at the end of November:

LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE...THE CHUKCHI SEA REMAINS MOSTLY OPEN
SOUTH OF ROUGHLY 74N WITH SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES REMAINING ABOVE
FREEZING THROUGHOUT MUCH OF THE SEA ICE FREE WATER. IN THE BERING
SEA...SEA ICE HAS STRUGGLED TO BECOME ESTABLISHED BEYOND THE SHALLOW
AND PROTECTED WATERS ALONG THE WEST COAST OF ALASKA AS STORMS HAVE
BROUGHT PERIODS OF WARMER AIR TO THE REGION IN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER.

AS WE LOOK FORWARD THROUGH FEBRUARY...THE CHUKCHI SEA IS EXPECTED TO
EXPERIENCE SEA ICE CONDITIONS SIMILAR TO LAST WINTER WITH THE ICE
PACK SLOW TO FORM AND REMAINING RELATIVELY MOBILE THROUGH MUCH OF
THE WINTER. THE BERING SEA ICE PACK MAY ALSO BE SLOW TO ESTABLISH IF
STORMS AGAIN HAVE A PATH THROUGH THE BERING SEA INTO EARLY 2018 AS
EXPECTED. HOW FAR NORTH THESE STORMS TRACK WILL HAVE A LARGE IMPACT
ON THE QUALITY OF THE ICE PACK WITHIN THE BERING SEA LATER THIS
WINTER.

AT THIS TIME...THERE IS A 50 PERCENT CHANCE THAT SEA ICE WILL REACH
SAINT PAUL ISLAND SOMETIME THIS SEASON. IF IT DOES...IT LIKELY WOULD
NOT OCCUR BEFORE THE END OF FEBRUARY. THERE IS A 30 PERCENT CHANCE
THAT SEA ICE WILL REACH SAINT GEORGE ISLAND THIS SEASON. IF IT
DOES...IT LIKELY WOULD NOT OCCUR BEFORE THE END OF FEBRUARY.

Niall Dollard

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #430 on: December 05, 2017, 04:39:41 PM »
I see the record November mean temperature at Utqiaġvik as a product of a long chain of events, with many occurring simultaneously. Something along the lines of :

1. Man increases greenhouse gases. Increase in temperatures.
2. Leading to increased global water vapour
3. Leading to increased global temperatures
4. Especially in the Arctic (Amplification)
5. Multiyear ice decreases each year.
6. By 2016, very little MYI left in the Beaufort/Chukchi. Even "big block" could not survive. Without MYI, Beaufort/Chukchi much easier to melt out.
7. At the same time a strong El Nino is in full swing.
8. Leading to warmer air heading north and warmer Pacific SSTs through the Bering.
9. By Sept 2017 Ice north of the Chukchi has melted back well into the Arctic Basin allowing Pen Hadow to sail as far as 81 North.
10. All this vast (unprecendented) extent of ocean, north, west and south west of Utqiaġvik takes a long time to re-freeze.
11. Coupled with the high SSTs and a synoptic weather pattern advecting warm air up through the Bering Strait though much of the fall. Aleutian Low replaced by Aleutian High.
12. Leading to record mean temp.   

Neven

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #431 on: December 05, 2017, 05:22:06 PM »
Why not making the Pacific region larger, even if it overlaps other regions. When I think on the Pacific side (and I believe many people here too) I think on a much broader region including most of the Beaufort sea, reaching Amundsen Gulf on one side, and taking on the other side part of the ESS as well (almost reaching the New Siberian Islands).
In other words 120W to 150E,
clockwise
around the pole
north pole

Thanks for the suggestion, Sterks. I'll give it some thought.
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Neven

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #432 on: December 05, 2017, 10:09:52 PM »
Thanks for the suggestion, Sterks. I'll give it some thought.

I have given it some thought, and to make my fellow OCD neurotics happy, I've divided the Arctic up into four equal quadrants. The Pacific quadrant doesn't look too great geographically, gobbling up parts of Siberia and Canada, but it's not my fault that they made Bering Strait as narrow as it is. And besides, the quadrant does follow sea borders better now (consisting of Beaufort, Chukchi and ESS).

And to punish Tor for his unwarranted irony, I've renamed the American quadrant to Canadian quadrant. Canada first.  ;)

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A-Team

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #433 on: December 05, 2017, 10:51:11 PM »
Quote
is there any way to make our dorky flat graphs come to life?
ESRL has quite a few items we have not made use of so far, notably the 'meteograms'  and 'xsections' in the archive of 'Reb Plots'. These are mostly for selected weather stations around the western Arctic, with the exception of one which seems to average the whole Arctic Ocean but over current sea ice only. (These are ten day predictions but include the initial state.)

These meteograms provide W/m2 of radiative transfer, ice volume, ice area, air pressure, temperature and precip/6hrs. The display is weirdly fascinating despite some layout erratics at ESRL's end.

ArcticOcean_meteogram below
Tiksi_meteogram
OliktokPoint_meteogram
Eureka_meteogram
BeringStraits_meteogram
Beaufort_xsection
Beaufort_meteogram
Barrow_meteogram
Alert_meteogram

Technical note: It's somewhat a nuisance to animate these because of how they're archived, ie the whole bundle of files for each day of the time span has to be downloaded and the specific file fished out, below ArcticOcean_meteogram. Scraping off white space, these are 550x991 pixels, too much for the forum with 78 frames. Reducing to 700 pixels height and underlaying two dimmed copies of UH AMSR2 for the day in question results in the animation below.

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/seaice/

Daniel B.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #434 on: December 06, 2017, 06:06:54 PM »
Nice Neven.  Do you have longer range data for the quadrants?  Based on your graphs, the temperature shows an increase due to the 2016 El Nino (except for Siberia).  It would be relatively flat otherwise.  Perhaps a longer timeframe would be able to confirm these results.

Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #435 on: December 06, 2017, 06:39:09 PM »
The actually equal-in-size quadrants makes some sense when comparing regions.  I feel appropriately put in my place  :'( only because I thought the irony was warranted.  ;)

Almost on-topic (that is, freezing season) the local (Tallahassee, Florida) forecast calls for lows of 33ºF this weekend.  I need to bring my orchids inside early this year.
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Neven

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #436 on: December 07, 2017, 12:53:33 AM »
Nice Neven.  Do you have longer range data for the quadrants?  Based on your graphs, the temperature shows an increase due to the 2016 El Nino (except for Siberia).  It would be relatively flat otherwise.  Perhaps a longer timeframe would be able to confirm these results.

Here's the entire dataset with linear trend lines:
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #437 on: December 07, 2017, 12:59:34 AM »
The actually equal-in-size quadrants makes some sense when comparing regions.

Technically I'm not comparing regions, but monthly temperatures for the past 10/70 years within those individual regions. It's like a graph showing temperatures for the past 50 years in Paris, London, New York and Nuuk, allowing a quicker overview than when making four separate graphs.

But I didn't like the distribution along geographical lines. That map just didn't look right, and so I re-did it. Again, I wish Bering Strait was as wide as the Atlantic on the other side.  ;D

Quote
I feel appropriately put in my place  :'( only because I thought the irony was warranted.  ;)

It was indeed warranted, but I'm not changing it back to 'American'.  :P ;)
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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #438 on: December 08, 2017, 09:01:04 AM »
Some festive illuminations from Santa and Snow White:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/12/the-festive-season-in-the-arctic/

Rudolf et al. are currently taking a refreshing dip in the Chukchi Sea:
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #439 on: December 08, 2017, 06:19:41 PM »
Just when you thought it was safe to go outdoors again:
« Last Edit: December 08, 2017, 06:26:02 PM by Thomas Barlow »

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #440 on: December 11, 2017, 12:13:24 AM »
I finally had some time again playing around with sea ice concentration data.

My first project was creating maps showing the number of ice free days in a given year, ranging from 0-180 days. Above 180 days the region can be considered seasonally ice-covered and not seasonally ice-free (technically 183 days, but it's not a great number to put on the the legend)

Other recent years can be found here(Antarctic too):
https://sites.google.com/site/cryospherecomputing/analysis/ice-free-days



The second project calculated the earliest, median and latest ice free date for the melting & freezing season for each grid cell using the 15% concentration threshold. I chose median instead of mean (average) because if one years doesn't get ice free at all it's impossible to calculate a mean.

It's a shame that I can't make the maps interactive to show the exact date with mouse over. From the color scale you can only estimate the rough date. Every tick on the legend shows the beginning of the month and not the middle.

See first attachment for the Arctic median freeze date. Other maps under the link:
https://sites.google.com/site/cryospherecomputing/analysis/melt-freeze-dates

The third project is a composite map showing which year has the lowest SIC and which one has the highest SIC. Again an interactive map would have been better, but this time there are only 11 different years and it's easier to distinguish them. I coded them to update every day on my webpage.

See second attachment for the 9th December. The updated maps are under the link:
https://sites.google.com/site/cryospherecomputing/analysis

Sometimes the maps look like someone has set off several paint bombs. For this reason I also created maps showing the earliest ice-free year for each grid cell (below 15% SIC). They are a lot cleaner.

One grid cell example: If the year 2010 had a SIC less than 15% and every year before had more than 15% then the cell would get the value 2010. It doesn't matter if 2011,2012,2013,... all have been ice-free too. Only when 10 out of the 11 considered years are ice-free the grid cell will be empty.

See third attachment for the earliest ice-free year

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #441 on: December 11, 2017, 09:46:35 AM »
A new video from Kevin Pluck:



If you watch and wait for bit sea ice appears on the scene.
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oren

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #442 on: December 11, 2017, 09:55:39 AM »
I finally had some time again playing around with sea ice concentration data.
Thanks, very interesting stuff.
BTW, the Chukchi is where all the action is happening recently, maybe you can get some graph or map focusing on the Chukchi and showing the lengthening of the ice-free period.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #443 on: December 11, 2017, 10:07:48 AM »
BTW, the Chukchi is where all the action is happening recently, maybe you can get some graph or map focusing on the Chukchi and showing the lengthening of the ice-free period.

Like this for example?

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/12/the-festive-season-in-the-arctic/#Dec-10
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numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #444 on: December 11, 2017, 04:51:46 PM »
Fog all over Frobisher Bay today under clear skies. It's the first day of normal temperatures in about a month. We have a few days in a row scheduled like this, so the bay should finally freeze up and stay frozen.

It's nice to see the sun again, too.

PS: wrote the words above in the morning, at sunrise. Now it's 1pm and the freezing-over is almost complete. There's still some wisps of fog over the remaining bits of open water.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2017, 07:04:08 PM by numerobis »

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #445 on: December 12, 2017, 06:07:33 PM »
headlines todayhttps://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/12/570119468/arctics-temperature-continues-to-run-hot-latest-report-card-shows
sometimes

Dharma Rupa

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #446 on: December 13, 2017, 07:10:54 PM »
I think it is beginning to look pretty clear that ever since 20151227 (Dec 27, 2015), this is the New Normal:

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #447 on: December 13, 2017, 08:01:40 PM »
Although two years, statistically, won't determine a new state, it has only gotten 'cold' once in almost two years, according to the DMI 80N graphs.

I wonder what the atmospheric physicists and climate modelers and such have to say about what could steadfastly maintain North Pole winter 'warmth'.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #448 on: December 13, 2017, 08:58:07 PM »
Although two years, statistically, won't determine a new state, it has only gotten 'cold' once in almost two years, according to the DMI 80N graphs.

I wonder what the atmospheric physicists and climate modelers and such have to say about what could steadfastly maintain North Pole winter 'warmth'.
I'll hazard a predictive summary of their comments- warmer water, thinner ice, far greater inputs of moisture from lower latitudes.
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charles_oil

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #449 on: December 13, 2017, 09:34:09 PM »


See the NOAA report thread
link=topic=2213.msg136159#msg136159 date=1513160047



Quote:
Despite relatively cool summer temperatures, observations in 2017 continue to indicate that the Arctic environmental system has reached a 'new normal', characterized by long-term losses in the extent and thickness of the sea ice cover, the extent and duration of the winter snow cover and the mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet and Arctic glaciers, and warming sea surface and permafrost temperatures.