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jdallen

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1450 on: June 19, 2018, 06:47:02 AM »
Friv suggested on another thread that the Beaufort is not as vulnerable as in past years because it appears to  have escaped torching that took place on the Siberian side a few days ago.

I'm not sure I agree.  There are ways in which 2018 is as messed up as 2012.  2013 and 2014 actually appeared to have more melt ponds than either 2012 or 2018.  I don't think we can declare the ice safe from a fairly steep dive, especially with compactness dropping as hard as it has in the last 48 hours.
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John Batteen

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1451 on: June 19, 2018, 06:51:29 AM »
Solar maximum, while perhaps not the best choice of words, was definitely referring to the upcoming solstice.

Aluminium

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1452 on: June 19, 2018, 07:54:01 AM »
June 14-18.

Lord M Vader

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1453 on: June 19, 2018, 08:58:42 AM »
Seems like the latest EC operational run wants a weak high pressure to build up over Beaufort in a week or so. Let's see if that trend will hold in upcoming runs!

subgeometer

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1454 on: June 19, 2018, 09:13:37 AM »
ESS

Clear skies over the Southern Laptev on June 18 reveals an intricate pattern of floes stitched together, reminds me of a map of a city surrounded by intensively farmed land. The tapestry of colours tell something of the ice's history that I can only partly grasp  - the blue is meltponds, and the grey? All soot and dust that arrived on the wind? And grey in different tones, is darker older, or from a different source?

Blown up on a big TV it looks quite stunning

There's a warm week ahead in the Laptev - maximums in the 20s and minimums of 15 for the next 2 days on the shore just out of frame to the south, not dropping below 8C all ECMWF forecast, with a dipole driving warmth over the ice. The week in northern Eurasia is forecast to be very warm, with GFS showing widespread temps near to and above 30 by the arctic Ocean shore. ECMWF is not quite so extreme but the picture is similar, and quite a lot of warmth will be drawn over the Eurasian and Atlantic sectors by dipoles

Technical note: I darkening the blacks and greys andbrightened white by applying levels like so:
Black 25
grey 0.52
white 230

Hyperion

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1455 on: June 19, 2018, 11:20:10 AM »
There hasn't been much Greenland melt in the last 3 months but a big negative SST anomaly developed because the weather was cold. A cold anomaly that develops because of a THC slow down will have a fresh water lid over the Mediterranean overflow water layer at 1000m depth. This winter there was strong mixing that broke down the warm salty Med water layer.
Hmmm...
I don't think there has been a thermohaline circulation slowdown. I think that hypersaline Atlantic bottom water formation used to be primarily on the Atlantic side of the Lomonosov ridge and nares-outer CAA shallows during winter freeze. And this allowed the saltiest water on the western boundary of the north Atlantic ridge to enter the Beaufort through the 700m deep trench in the lomonosov next to Greenland. The very warm salty layer in the Beaufort from about 700m to out of depth range of the itp buoys was there until about 2008. Then never ever after. I think this is because bottom water production moved to the Beaufort side, primarily the outer CAA, Elsmere and Greenland NW coast. Causing a back flow thru the Lomonosov gap that's been sapping angular momentum from the Beaufort gyres deep circulation rather than supplementing it. In any case a surface purge is well overdue. But unlike the big one that happened in the sixties/seventies, I think now we have a strong eastward current established along the Russian coast, increased surface salinity in the so called freshwater store in the Beaufort, and an expired deep flywheel that will not be there to help it reestablish. There is no way I believe that flood of negative SSTA down the was Atlantic and across the tropics for a couple of months now, is not flooding out of the Beaufort gyre. It may. Well be responsible for the mixing with the med overflow layer you refer to also. There hasn't been any surface water in the Beaufort gyre below about 28.5 PSU  in the last few years, whereas ten years ago a substantial and deeper layer was 22-26 PSU. A bit of mixing with warm Atlantic water surfacing in the Labrador, and mid Atlantic and you have plenty of slugs of appropriate densities to interact with your med overflow.
Plenty of talk about the gyre collapsing last year if you look.And the Beaufort ITP buoys have shown little sign of wanting to follow a gyre rotation for the last year. Pretty much headed straight south all three of them. 108 is the only one recently active. Traversed the area where that big low salinity well was picked up by 97. Showed no sign of it. If the core has spun off towards Russia, it would have to be expelling reaction mass. Conservation of momentum and all that.
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Neven

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1456 on: June 19, 2018, 11:24:25 AM »
Cut back on the long theoretical texts, guys. This is the 2018 melting season thread. Thanks.
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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1457 on: June 19, 2018, 12:40:10 PM »
Cut back on the long theoretical texts, guys. This is the 2018 melting season thread. Thanks.

What with the long wave theoretical texts and all, now seems like the perfect time to remove the 'F' from the Great White Con Arctic Basin Big Wave Fantasy Surfing Competition?

https://twitter.com/V2G_EVSE/status/1009016006684151808

And what's a 'B' or two between friends at the end of the day?
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oren

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1458 on: June 19, 2018, 02:40:10 PM »
- The Canadian Archipelago loss 27 k (120k in the last five days - wow?).
Gerontocrat made the above comment on the data thread about NSIDC area. I believe what NSIDC is seeing is widespread melt ponds reducing the apparent concentration, rather than actual loss of sea ice area in the CAA. It's still a significant development though, as Worldview shows.
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FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1459 on: June 19, 2018, 05:44:15 PM »
There's a huge amount of volume melting on the Siberian side right now but JAXA extent stalled because of ice dispersion in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and Hudson's bay. With the big shift in water inflow from the Pacific to the Atlantic compaction has dropped across most of the Arctic. Inconsistent flow directions generally lead to melt seasons with less extent loss. So far, this year has seen so much heat advected over the Arctic ocean that I'm very curious to see if the general rules hold up again. I still fear, with the ice thicker on the Eurasian side and thinner than normal on the American side going into this melt season that something unexpected could happen in August or September.

About the big picture, the deep water in the Labrador sea is getting warmer and saltier according to Mercator Ocean. The Gulf Stream is alive and well and the extraordinary weather pattern should be increasing the rate of Atlantic water inflow to the Arctic ocean. If this link works, look very carefully at the color change in the Labrador sea that shows the 3000m level getting saltier over the past 6 weeks. Imbedding the video didn't work so click the link. It might work.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/2/6

Please note that we don't have to make assertions based on our personal notions of what's happening in the Arctic. There are science-based models that provide maps, cross sections and animations in real time. It a very good idea to check your personal notions against these models.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/3/3
« Last Edit: June 19, 2018, 06:39:18 PM by FishOutofWater »

gerontocrat

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1460 on: June 19, 2018, 06:31:10 PM »
This is what DMI says has happened to SSTs in the Arctic over the last month.
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bbr2314

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1461 on: June 19, 2018, 06:46:20 PM »
Copernicus shows severe losses through the 27th. The Atlantic front is about to become much more expansive, with the slushy ice in Barentz imminently melting out. This will yield a new ice front stretching from the ESS all the way to E of Greenland. I wonder if that may reduce the # of simultaneous cyclones but increase their severity? (e.g., many ice fronts = +opportunities for generation of cyclones due to multiple contrasting thermal gradients, "singular" ice fronts create more stable / longer thermal gradients that may be more prone to fewer / deeper cyclones).

In any case, I think July numbers and area/extent losses will be worst-ever.


Pagophilus

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1462 on: June 19, 2018, 06:48:58 PM »
Please note that we don't have to make assertions based on our personal notions of what's happening in the Arctic. There are science-based models that provide maps, cross sections and animations in real time. It a very good idea to check your personal notions against these models.
http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/3/3

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Hyperion

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1463 on: June 19, 2018, 07:09:34 PM »
Cut back on the long theoretical texts, guys. This is the 2018 melting season thread. Thanks.

What with the long wave theoretical texts and all, now seems like the perfect time to remove the 'F' from the Great White Con Arctic Basin Big Wave Fantasy Surfing Competition?

https://twitter.com/V2G_EVSE/status/1009016006684151808

And what's a 'B' or two between friends at the end of the day?
Best buy bergs, bet between buckets, burn, blat, bust?
Fastest floe, final frizzle, furiousest fragmentation?
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FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1464 on: June 19, 2018, 07:17:28 PM »
Yes, my only gripe with Mercator Ocean is that as they keep on improving the model they bury access to the earlier model output. I'm sure that people more inclined to do their own graphics than I am could find a way around this problem but it limits my ability to make year to year comparisons.

We don't have to limit ourselves to low resolution images of surface temperature changes. We can see the warm water pushing into the Arctic at 30m depth, 100m depth and 300m depth. Here's the link to 30m. It's a better indicator of warm water inflow than SSTs which are highly variable depending on storms, mixing and weather.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/1/2

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1465 on: June 19, 2018, 07:50:21 PM »
Best buy bergs, bet between buckets, burn, blat, bust?
Fastest floe, final frizzle, furiousest fragmentation?

Elon's been ignoring me, as per usual. Snow thought (s)he might try Margot instead. She is a surfer from Oz after all!

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1009057917310521344

« Last Edit: June 19, 2018, 08:05:29 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Alexander555

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1466 on: June 19, 2018, 07:58:22 PM »
There's a huge amount of volume melting on the Siberian side right now but JAXA extent stalled because of ice dispersion in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and Hudson's bay. With the big shift in water inflow from the Pacific to the Atlantic compaction has dropped across most of the Arctic. Inconsistent flow directions generally lead to melt seasons with less extent loss. So far, this year has seen so much heat advected over the Arctic ocean that I'm very curious to see if the general rules hold up again. I still fear, with the ice thicker on the Eurasian side and thinner than normal on the American side going into this melt season that something unexpected could happen in August or September.

About the big picture, the deep water in the Labrador sea is getting warmer and saltier according to Mercator Ocean. The Gulf Stream is alive and well and the extraordinary weather pattern should be increasing the rate of Atlantic water inflow to the Arctic ocean. If this link works, look very carefully at the color change in the Labrador sea that shows the 3000m level getting saltier over the past 6 weeks. Imbedding the video didn't work so click the link. It might work.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/2/6

Please note that we don't have to make assertions based on our personal notions of what's happening in the Arctic. There are science-based models that provide maps, cross sections and animations in real time. It a very good idea to check your personal notions against these models.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/3/3


I have been looking at the sea ice thickness, at that site. And they show some of the thick ice at the Beaufort Sea (3 to 4 meter). But if you look at Nasa Worldview, the ice looks like soup. There are many places where the ice is only between 1 and 1,5 meter, and it looks much more solid. Is there an explanation for that ?

Hyperion

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1467 on: June 19, 2018, 07:58:45 PM »
This is what DMI says has happened to SSTs in the Arctic over the last month.
Jeepers!
In may there was patches of water as low as -15 or 20 C on the surface! That must be some real salty water g!
Anyone know where Nullschool SST data comes from? Is that modeled too or is it real satellite sensor derived, and if so by what method?
I have concerns about whether the mercantor model is "improving" fast enough to cope with changing conditions. There is way less known about the deep oceans, especially the arctic, than the surfaces of any planet or decent sized asteroid in our solar system. I doubt that the current flow animations on Null school are real data either. Until someone spreads a few million swarm balls with appropriate density distributions into the pond to float with the currents at all depths, measure temp and salinity and squeak the data back to us via an ultrasonic modem network its mostly guesswork. But the buoy data, sealevel anomalies, and I hope Null school SST data we SHOULD be able to trust. Though sometimes I have suspicions of a fishy odour from those ITPs. 100 and 101 data has stopped way too fast. There were lots of stuff sjpwing on the charts, that vanished from them within days or hours. And the IMB data from the colocates is not being released this year either. They are US military. Might be coloured by the knowledge that our NZ personal in the Antarctic that collect the ozone data and relay it to NOAA and NASA, have very poor job satisfaction. The charts that appear three hours later have no relationship to the data collected. There has not been an ozone hole recovery.
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NeilT

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1468 on: June 19, 2018, 08:09:09 PM »
It is currently Solar Minimum.

i think he meant solstice while you refer to the sun itself, sorry if i missed something but that was my impression, a misunderstanding?

Probably,  I'd mentioned minimum earlier meaning the 10 year solar cycle.  But we are certainly at the peak of the "solar day".  If not the peak impact of that day.
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1469 on: June 19, 2018, 09:09:35 PM »
My apologies on the misuse of the phrase solar maximum.

I was definitely speaking of the solstice.


Anyways going back to the year 1999.  Surprisingly only one melt season had a legit major dipole anomaly and that was 2010.

2014 had a solid dipole but didn't have the super ridge and subsequent explosive low level temps bringing that perfect combo of sun and mixing in the 900-1000hpa level.

2007 also had a dipole but it in a recycling phase during the solstice.

The 10 days prior 2007 had an epic ridge just sit in place over the central Arctic basin.

The year most resembling our current weather is 2013.


There is currently a decent push of heat rolling through the Laptev into the Western CAB and Chuchki.

It weakens but the flow bends enough for 0c+ air to infiltrate the Beaufort over the next couple of days.

Another warm pulse and somewhat breakdown of the vortex comes later this week and it will be bringing moisture off the Barents

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jdallen

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1470 on: June 19, 2018, 10:11:00 PM »
Copernicus shows severe losses through the 27th. The Atlantic front is about to become much more expansive, with the slushy ice in Barentz imminently melting out. This will yield a new ice front stretching from the ESS all the way to E of Greenland. I wonder if that may reduce the # of simultaneous cyclones but increase their severity? (e.g., many ice fronts = +opportunities for generation of cyclones due to multiple contrasting thermal gradients, "singular" ice fronts create more stable / longer thermal gradients that may be more prone to fewer / deeper cyclones).

In any case, I think July numbers and area/extent losses will be worst-ever.
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Pagophilus

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1471 on: June 19, 2018, 10:55:01 PM »
The forking of the tongue of warm water in the northernmost Atlantic to take a lick around Svalbard is really striking.

Yes, my only gripe with Mercator Ocean is that as they keep on improving the model they bury access to the earlier model output. I'm sure that people more inclined to do their own graphics than I am could find a way around this problem but it limits my ability to make year to year comparisons.

We don't have to limit ourselves to low resolution images of surface temperature changes. We can see the warm water pushing into the Arctic at 30m depth, 100m depth and 300m depth. Here's the link to 30m. It's a better indicator of warm water inflow than SSTs which are highly variable depending on storms, mixing and weather.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/en/permalink/PSY4/animation/3/20180501/20180618/1/2
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bbr2314

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1472 on: June 20, 2018, 12:23:50 AM »
Copernicus shows severe losses through the 27th. The Atlantic front is about to become much more expansive, with the slushy ice in Barentz imminently melting out. This will yield a new ice front stretching from the ESS all the way to E of Greenland. I wonder if that may reduce the # of simultaneous cyclones but increase their severity? (e.g., many ice fronts = +opportunities for generation of cyclones due to multiple contrasting thermal gradients, "singular" ice fronts create more stable / longer thermal gradients that may be more prone to fewer / deeper cyclones).

In any case, I think July numbers and area/extent losses will be worst-ever.
What site are these screen shots from?

http://marine.copernicus.eu/services-portfolio/access-to-products/?option=com_csw&view=details&product_id=ARCTIC_ANALYSIS_FORECAST_PHYS_002_001_a

Niall Dollard

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1473 on: June 20, 2018, 12:42:07 AM »
NSIDC currently showing for day 169 that 2018 has managed somehow to slip back into 5th place (after being 2nd or 1st for much of April and May).

2016 10.516
2012 10.572
2010 10.659
2017 10.695
2018 10.701

Much of this apparent improvement (compared to the ice extent/anomalies this Spring) is due to the huge Bering anomaly being out of the way now. Comparing against the NSIDC median ice edge 1981-2010, the big anomalies are east Greenland down to Cape Farewell (there is little ice below Scoresby Sund), around Svalbard to FJL and the Laptev hole. 

Pagophilus

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1474 on: June 20, 2018, 05:25:29 AM »
Thank you for your summary -- it helps my perspective.  Further points: less than 200,000 km2 separate the five worst extent years from around this date.  My view is that the ice extents were previously all pretty close together anyway at this point, so slipping or gaining places is quite likely and not so consequential -- rather like a bunch of leading runners on the second lap of a 1500m race.  (As to the future, neither the Hudson Bay or South Kara Sea have given up much ice area at this point, so there is a lot of ice in these areas that WILL melt that is left to impact extent in the future.) 

A question.  As to the open-ocean-gap in the Laptev (and the same situation exists to a lesser degree in the Kara) is this large open ocean area counted as part of the extent of the ice by NSIDC? Or not?  From NSIDC's yellow lines it would seem yes, but it seems hard to believe they would do this.  Your comment implies that the Laptev gap is not counted as extent.   But IF the Laptev gap is currently counted in extent, then once the coastal fast ice melts out and makes contact with this Laptev open water, will this Laptev gap be suddenly counted as NOT part of the ice extent?  And extent will presumably plunge that day?  Can you or others please clarify?

Closeup of NSIDC's Charctic 5 day trailing avg graph as of today, with relevant years included...

 
NSIDC currently showing for day 169 that 2018 has managed somehow to slip back into 5th place (after being 2nd or 1st for much of April and May).

2016 10.516
2012 10.572
2010 10.659
2017 10.695
2018 10.701

Much of this apparent improvement (compared to the ice extent/anomalies this Spring) is due to the huge Bering anomaly being out of the way now. Comparing against the NSIDC median ice edge 1981-2010, the big anomalies are east Greenland down to Cape Farewell (there is little ice below Scoresby Sund), around Svalbard to FJL and the Laptev hole.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 05:33:39 AM by Pagophilus »
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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1475 on: June 20, 2018, 06:01:21 AM »
The detachment that we saw during the winter off the northeast of Greenland has started up again in the past couple of days on Worldview (sorry, still no picture uploads from here - next week I'll be able to start obliging!).

If Fram export picks up then there's a lot of ice there that can now get flushed out, and the exported ice down the east side of Greenland is now little more than swirly froth, so not a lot of resistance. On the other hand, this might be a temporary change due to wind patterns, soon to be slammed shut again. Worth keeping an eye on, though, and if nothing else it's likely to further help the extent numbers, even if it's melting in the process...


oren

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1476 on: June 20, 2018, 06:07:15 AM »
A question.  As to the open-ocean-gap in the Laptev (and the same situation exists to a lesser degree in the Kara) is this large open ocean area counted as part of the extent of the ice by NSIDC? Or not?  From NSIDC's yellow lines it would seem yes, but it seems hard to believe they would do this.  Your comment implies that the Laptev gap is not counted as extent.   But IF the Laptev gap is currently counted in extent, then once the coastal fast ice melts out and makes contact with this Laptev open water, will this Laptev gap be suddenly counted as NOT part of the ice extent?  And extent will presumably plunge that day?  Can you or others please clarify?
Of course, the large open ocean area is not counted as extent, as can be seen on Worldview with (NSIDC) ice concentration overlay.

slow wing

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1477 on: June 20, 2018, 06:30:03 AM »
Today's AMSR2 map is out from U. Bremen & it's one of the dates on Neven's year-to-year AMSR2 graphic comparison that I like.

As already noted in #1473 above, melt is quite aggressive in two regions this year, as shown with white arrows:

1) North of Svalbard, where the ice front position looks almost like it's September. The retreat of the ice front has been particularly aggressive in recent days as Aluminium illustrated in post #1452 above; and

2) The hole in the Laptev sea.

The other regions of the Arctic Basin look fairly average for this time of year - that is to say, still mainly covered in ice.

The anomalous amount of heat north of Svalbard is the most interesting feature for me at the moment. It looks like it's being brought primarily by wind &/or water rather than direct sunlight. Will the ice edge come even closer to the North Pole? How much ice will be pushed into this region during the rest of the melt season & will that all just melt away?

Most of the melt season is still ahead of us and I think it is still premature to pick where this year will end in the yearly standings for minimum extent. For example, it could still be a record or end in second place, or it might not.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 06:36:25 AM by slow wing »

Iain

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1478 on: June 20, 2018, 07:05:50 AM »
Breakup in the Perry Channel. Clouds make it hard to see the extent. Polar view does not have an image of the area post breakup yet.

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

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subgeometer

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1479 on: June 20, 2018, 09:20:13 AM »


There is also the possibility that the extreme thin ice over the winter allowed the sea to vent a lot of heat to the atmosphere.  Which would mean all that heat has to build back up again before very significant bottom melt can happen.



Another negative feedback I've been wondering about is how much extra ice is formed because of how thin the ice is, and how the thin softer higher temperature and more mobile ice can be easily piled up and deformed, opening new glue ice regions to repeat the process,and again, venting extra heat in winter

subgeometer

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1480 on: June 20, 2018, 09:49:43 AM »
This is what DMI says has happened to SSTs in the Arctic over the last month.

There are a couple of notable differences between the DMI and NCEP anomaly maps at the moment - DMI shows really pronounced warming in the Laptev Sea, and has the icefree region of the Beaufort mostly near normal/faintly negative while while the American model has the Beaufort anomaly larger than that in the Laptev Sea.

On the topic of clouds, looking at Worldview it seems to me that the region with consistent thick cloud has been (most of) the CAB, extending across into the northern CAA, where the Beaufort has seen a lot of thin translucent cloud which may not be so effective at ice protection. On the Siberian side where cloud bands come through its been so warm aloft that it may well be raining under them. That thick cloud, and cool air, on the Canadian side is good news though

edit: I put 2 copies of the DMI chart, replaced one with NCEP
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 10:04:47 AM by subgeometer »

Neven

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1481 on: June 20, 2018, 10:36:50 AM »
ECMWF is slowly tending towards high pressure over the Beaufort Sea. It has now seeped into the 6-day forecast, but it's fickle, so may change at any time.

However, if it does come about, the Sun will invest some of its energy over there too, which might make itself felt in July and August:
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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1482 on: June 20, 2018, 12:02:46 PM »
Most of the melt season is still ahead of us and I think it is still premature to pick where this year will end in the yearly standings for minimum extent. For example, it could still be a record or end in second place, or it might not.

The next four to six weeks the area and extent graphs of most years tend to stick together very closely. Winter and spring preconditioning usually plays out in august, not before. This is another interesting season. With the atlantic side extremely deformed, the September extent could show a very unusual shape – though maybe not in absolute numbers.

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1483 on: June 20, 2018, 01:33:00 PM »
4 views of the Laptev gap and Tiksi today. Worldview Terra/Modis true color and three VIIRS brightness temperatures images.
273K(0C) to 280K(17C) Looking at Laptev gap SST
273K(0C) to 292K(19C) Looking at coastal SST
273K(0C) to 306K(33C) Looking at land temperatures.
Temperatures are approximate. Light blue is 0C and yellow is the upper temperature.

I think that must be cloud near Tiksi, though the position is a bit odd.

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1484 on: June 20, 2018, 01:47:57 PM »
A question.  As to the open-ocean-gap in the Laptev (and the same situation exists to a lesser degree in the Kara) is this large open ocean area counted as part of the extent of the ice by NSIDC? Or not?  From NSIDC's yellow lines it would seem yes, but it seems hard to believe they would do this. 
The "yellow lines" are the median extent from 1981-2010.  They're not the current extent.  The current extent is shown in white pixels.  So NSIDC's number is correct and it's not counting the Laptev Gap as if it were part of the SIE.

Daniel B.

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1485 on: June 20, 2018, 01:58:32 PM »
NSIDC currently showing for day 169 that 2018 has managed somehow to slip back into 5th place (after being 2nd or 1st for much of April and May).

2016 10.516
2012 10.572
2010 10.659
2017 10.695
2018 10.701

Much of this apparent improvement (compared to the ice extent/anomalies this Spring) is due to the huge Bering anomaly being out of the way now. Comparing against the NSIDC median ice edge 1981-2010, the big anomalies are east Greenland down to Cape Farewell (there is little ice below Scoresby Sund), around Svalbard to FJL and the Laptev hole.

That, and the cooler than average June temperatures in the Arctic may have contributed.

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1486 on: June 20, 2018, 02:38:19 PM »
Latest update from the JAXA predict-o-matic:

Sept. minimum (daily) = 4.29, 95% CI = [3.37 - 5.22]

The chances of a new record are now less than the chances of finishing above 5.0.  There is a 26% chance of being under 4.0.  Here are the probabilities for non-overlapping bins (so the probabilities add up to 100%):



2018 started out the year well below the post-2006 average, but it has been slowly creeping back upward, and is now within 82k of the average extent 2007-2017.  Last summer turned out to be a freakishly average year -- from May to September, 2017 rarely drifted far from the average.  It would be mildly interesting if 2018 did the same thing.

Here's the comparison of 2017 and 2018.  The dashed lines show the mean and +-2sigma for the 2006-to-previous year period.  (There actually are separate blue and orange dashed lines, for 2017 and 2018 respectively, but the differences are almost undistinguishable.)








bbr2314

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1487 on: June 20, 2018, 06:03:55 PM »
The split with the ESS should become much more pronounced by 7/1, whether there is open water or not, much of the ice linking it to the CAB is about to turn to slush.

The below is albedo from 6/20->6/28 by Copernicus.



I would also like to note the NSIDC and other modeling posted above has boundaries & thicknesses that are clearly incorrect (DMI too). This season it seems both HYCOM and Copernicus are the only modeling with a clue.

Something else to note was mentioned recently either in this thread or elsewhere: the high Atlantic is now similar to most September extents. The ice above Svalbard is literally just gone.

This is going to have a *profound* impact on weather as we head deeper into 2018 as portions of the high Arctic that haven't been open for solstice in however many millennia are now rapidly accumulating insolation at peak sun angle.

I would think that the situation both above Svalbard and in the Laptev will lend itself to enhanced storminess deeper into autumn and combined with the possible moderate El Nino event, will serve as another major "boost" to warming a la 2015, where the melt season may endure into October and refreeze in many regions could be postponed beyond that.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1488 on: June 20, 2018, 06:37:55 PM »
HYCOM also confirms things are about to get dramatic very quickly in the High Arctic:


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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1489 on: June 20, 2018, 08:12:53 PM »
and this is during the solar maximum.
Is the solar maximum effect really that significant in summer?

It is currently Solar Minimum.

Whilst it may not play that large a part, in summer, at Maximum, it certainly plays a part in summer at minimum.  The last Minimum was over the summers of 08 and 09.  It was a very low minimum and it certainly had an effect and also in Northern European winters.  I remember.

Whilst it may not play an absolute key part in any one season, you cannot ignore the fact that the heat which melts the ice comes from the sun.  Any variance in that does have an impact and, at solar minimum, that impact is every single day.
Yes, thanks, it's the minimum seems to have some minute indirect effect on regional temps in winter, but not conclusive. I haven't seen any strong evidence of solar maximum or minimum having any direct effect on melting/freezing. There may be some evidence of a convoluted remote effect, which affects ocean circulation and air temps. in the N. Atlantic, and around the world, that ends up indirectly having an effect on the ice, but it's not from solar changes causing changes in direct sunlight hitting the ice. It's not enough of a difference. This major study concludes there has been no-effect (on Greenland melt) so far, but that there could be a measurable effect (amplifying) in the future if global warming continues. There is no evidence of this, just that some models predict it might happen. It's interesting, but all pretty tentative. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011GL049444
The other study ( I posted already) suggests a possible (marginal) effect in winter only (and only very regional), and is due to atmospheric thermal effects in winter - not so much about direct sunlight hitting the ice - and it may cause regional effects in peripheral seas in the Arctic Ocean, but it's still tentative. Nothing has been detected for summer. The solar maximum and minimum have no proven significant direct (from sunlight) effect on ice-melt/freeze, or is there other published research showing any effect?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22854-0

It is currently Solar Minimum.

i think he meant solstice while you refer to the sun itself, sorry if i missed something but that was my impression, a misunderstanding?
Solar maximum, while perhaps not the best choice of words, was definitely referring to the upcoming solstice.

No, not referring to the solstice, as you can see from the study that was linked in the original post.
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2278.msg159454.html#msg159454

Edit: Oh, you meant Frivolousz21 meant "solstice". Ok, I picked up on the solar maximum phrase, and went researching that  ;D
I'm glad he used that phrase though, because it brought up the interesting studies above, when I was researching the effects.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 08:35:03 PM by Thomas Barlow »

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1490 on: June 20, 2018, 09:27:00 PM »
BBR if you compare this year's HYCOM to last year's for the same dates you will see that the Canadian and Alaskan side of the Arctic has thicker ice this year.


Overall, this year's melt season is behind last year's on HYCOM. The stormy weather, especially the cloudiness towards the Canadian-Alaskan corner of the Arctic ocean, has held back June melting.

I've been trying to figure out where the heat has been going. There's been a lot of heat taken up by the oceans beneath the surface this May and June. It's setting up for a weak to moderate El Niño this fall.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 12:14:17 AM by FishOutofWater »

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1491 on: June 20, 2018, 10:24:54 PM »
Yes, thanks, it's the minimum seems to have some minute indirect effect on regional temps in winter, but not conclusive. I haven't seen any strong evidence of solar maximum or minimum having any direct effect on melting/freezing.

That is the problem.  There is no strong evidence, nothing other than mild anecdotal evidence.  The problem, as I see it, is that the arctic is a very chaotic system with many different inputs and many different melt enhancers and melt blockers.  It is still, even today, only partially understood.

That does not make it very easy to pick out one signal from the noise.

Personally I'm going to watch this season and the following two with great interest.  It was expected that solar cycle 24 would expire around the end of 2017 or early 2018.  In fact it started to drop well below the expected trend line early in 2017 and apart from one small peak around October it dropped into Minimum at the end of the year.

Not that I'm saying solar was a single cause of the way the 2017 season went.  I'm not. But it has been a long time now that I have watched the two most potent factors in our climate, notably CO2 growth and Solar output.

After the dramatic loss of ice in 2007, the pause of 2008/2009 was hailed by the denialists as a resurgence of ice.  2010 put paid to that idiocy but it is still a fact that those two years were during the lowest solar minimum in close to a century.

So now it is time to watch.  The Pacific is anomalously hot, yet the pacific encroachment is stalled.  Let us watch and see, however, as Friv puts it, it surely doesn't look like any kind of record right now.
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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1492 on: June 20, 2018, 10:55:38 PM »
Not that I'm saying solar was a single cause of the way the 2017 season went.  I'm not. But it has been a long time now that I have watched the two most potent factors in our climate, notably CO2 growth and Solar output.

Some are bringing up SO2, but I must admit I haven't wrapped my head around that one.  Just another complication.

How short-term aerosols modify things and in which directions....oh well....I've always said we don't really know yet anyway.

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1493 on: June 21, 2018, 12:57:54 AM »
Based on the thickness maps above (HYCOM) & from Wipneus (PIOMAS), this melt season is reasonably likely to have open water extending closest to the North Pole for any year in the satellite record.

On the Atlantic side, open water is already at around 7-1/2 degrees from the Pole (e.g. at 35 or at 45 degrees E on AMSR2 map) & the current thickness maps show the ice inside that still only reaches around 1.3 metres thickness by 5 degrees from the Pole. From there, the ice thickens only to around 2 metres thick on approaching the North Pole itself.

On eye-balling Neven's map page https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0901, the current record appears to be just inside 5 degrees from the Pole, for an indent from the Siberian side in 2014.

Depending on how the ice melts and moves around, that record could go this year.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 01:09:54 AM by slow wing »

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1494 on: June 21, 2018, 01:49:59 AM »
Based on the thickness maps above (HYCOM) & from Wipneus (PIOMAS), this melt season is reasonably likely to have open water extending closest to the North Pole for any year in the satellite record.

My guts are telling me this year's minimum shape will be very similar to 2014 – but smaller ...
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Michael Hauber

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1495 on: June 21, 2018, 02:40:13 AM »
Will be interesting to watch how the Beaufort goes in the short term.  GFS current run doesn't look as bad as the EC that Neven posted, but still has that region warming up through the week.  Same day 2007 and 2012 had a lot of red in MODIS 3-6-7 suggesting strong surface melt, whereas current MODIS is looking rather orange and cool.  But also significantly dispersed with substantial amounts of open water a long way into the pack - much more so than ADS imagery seems to suggest.  A bit of sunshine and warmth may see strong melting.

Comparing some other regions to same day other years - Laptev is in the lead or close to it.  Kara had way less ice in 2012, yet the area near Svalbaard has way less ice than any of the other years I looked at.  Not sure what to make of this - some years I've seen the ice boundary in this region barely move at all from max to minimum, and one year the ice actually retreated from minimum to maybe a month or two before maximum.
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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1496 on: June 21, 2018, 02:56:34 AM »
A few years ago I was noticing similar problem when UCL/NSIDC researchers claimed thick ice was fringing the Atlantic edge and Laptev Sea had thin ice. Something of this is a result of the ice contour producing an exaggerated (inflated) thickness of ice, whereas flat unbroken MYI was undercounted (deflated). would it be that there are echoes of sides from broken ice interfering the surface signal, or that the tilted ice sends back amplified signal. I pointed this with Peter Wadhams when they presented wrong maps at the Paris Air Show (then under ESA Cryosat transitional management team at UCL).


I have been looking at the sea ice thickness, at that site. And they show some of the thick ice at the Beaufort Sea (3 to 4 meter). But if you look at Nasa Worldview, the ice looks like soup. There are many places where the ice is only between 1 and 1,5 meter, and it looks much more solid. Is there an explanation for that ?
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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1497 on: June 21, 2018, 03:27:00 AM »
Quote
What site are these albedo screen shots from?
You can just jump to https://tinyurl.com/ydbh226w or https://tinyurl.com/ycukzqva instead of wading through a dozen crummy screens of a very poorly conceived web site. The animation tool products cannot be saved and do not capture the date or color key so it's necessary to save out a png and edit the 984 character url for date range, then use a web browser utility that opens a list of urls and saves content, then embed the frame data.

The sea ice albedo time series, shown for 37 days out to June 28th, shows an interesting progression for increasing solar absorption potential but its accuracy is up in the air. Probably better off using ESRL 'Surface Fluxes' if looking for overall energy fluxes this time of year that considers clouds, albedo, longwave radiaton, etc.

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/seaice/ RSML
http://slideplayer.com/slide/13043726/ Topaz
« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 03:40:52 AM by A-Team »

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1498 on: June 21, 2018, 04:09:36 AM »
I don't use Mercator Ocean's sea ice thickness model for guidance. The best way to validate an ice thickness model is to compare it with Cryosat data in the freezing season. Obviously, there can be issues with interpreting snow ice mixtures in the freezing season. In the melting season it far worse when the satellite data is not reliable and there's slush, broken up ice, melt ponds and thick ridges where sheets of ice have been thrust over each other.

If you can see on Worldview that a model is failing, believe your eyes. It's hard to know if a model is getting thickness right but when you can see that it's not working, it isn't.

I didn't even bother to try to follow the Copernicus screens through to the data. What a user unfriendly mess of a site.

subgeometer

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Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #1499 on: June 21, 2018, 07:53:47 AM »
I made a gif to show how far into the pack the WAM model on WindyTv sees wave action propagating -a long way, 100s of kms -( at least in its 3D version, the 2D maps only show waves waves up to the edge of extent, which is odd.) How real this is I don't know. but if correct in recent days large waves were acting well into the ice north of Svalbard, mixing the surface layer and boosting bottom melt

tech note:

I mangled the colour by forgetting the ice map was indexed when I copied Windy's map over it to attempt to align them so I've included the originals. While both centred on the pole they have different projections so I aligned them on the meridians and the 80N circle
I had a weird battle with the `convert' tool(part of ImageMagick) I use to make gifs and had to reboot to clear some zombie memory cache of rogue frames