Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: The 2018 melting season  (Read 1028907 times)

be cause

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2441
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1012
  • Likes Given: 1034
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2850 on: August 15, 2018, 01:16:27 PM »
I need an hour to load this page atm .. great as it is ..near 50,000 kb of gifs that are all competing to load fully .. everywhere else I get to click to play .. and sometimes some folk on here set it up that way ..
The 50k kbs are only over the last 25 posts .. if we care for our environment we could at least make our posts environmentally friendly .. please .. b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

uniquorn

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 5117
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2163
  • Likes Given: 388
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2851 on: August 15, 2018, 03:05:11 PM »
More turbulence above the Svalbard hotspot.
Edit:and similar further south in the Norwegian Sea
Worldview, aug15
« Last Edit: August 15, 2018, 03:17:26 PM by uniquorn »

magnamentis

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2852 on: August 15, 2018, 04:58:15 PM »
Amazing animation Bairgon. What is the size of the floe? I am guessing it's fairly large.

2x2 km if i understood that correctly

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2853 on: August 15, 2018, 04:58:51 PM »
Quote
graphics slow to load?
The problem is mainly people not cropping gigantic satellite photos to display width of the forum, 700x700 pixels. Better to link to the gigantic photos offsite and only post what will display. Many are simply copy/pasting huge swaths of irrelevant regions literally as some internet site hosts them, say a Beaufort-only topic but showing south to US border. Many many off-topic MBs right there.

Cropping and resizing are the two most basic of all photo editing commands, they are everywhere including burner phone software. Many ice photos have no color, going grayscale will reduce size to 1/3rd. Gifs best remain 5-6 MB or less; after that rescale downward or save as mp4 movies. Those can cover a full year staying in the 5-6 MB range.

The westward surge of water in the Lincoln Sea continued yesterday, though not dramatically. Wind-driven lift-offs are common but ruled out here, along with coupled plastic tele-deformation. The thin green lines in the lower copy from the 9th on show the approximate boundary of this water relative to quasi-stationary waters north.

Daily ice motion has not been extreme in the Lincoln Sea area other than eddying (which is smoothed away in 2-day gridded OSI-SAFs). The SV-FJL-SZ periphery has been moving mostly southwestward. The Beaufort-Chukchi motion has been warmer-waterward and dispersive but sometime compacting stray floe zones; this will lead to unreliable values for extent/area/volume deltas.

The open water boundary along the SV-FJL-SZ corridor continues to recede monotonically. It is at record north relative to 2012-17 for the same date Aug 14th. However 2012 and especially 2013 ended the melt season well inside the Aug 14th of 2018 (which still has a full month to go however).

There may be some coordination between extensive releases of fresh water from melting ice onto the surface of saline sea water in the SV-FJL-SZ zone and the apparent westward forking of the WSC towards the Lincoln Sea.

It has not yet been possible to sail about Greenland this year without dodging floes in lower concentration ice. On no date has there been open water entirely around it based on the 20 bluest blues in the 3.125 km resolution UH AMSR2.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2018, 06:08:32 PM by A-Team »

meddoc

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 264
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 11
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2854 on: August 15, 2018, 05:06:59 PM »
More turbulence above the Svalbard hotspot.
Edit:and similar further south in the Norwegian Sea
Worldview, aug15

Could those odd Clouds & Turbulence be due to CH4 Release...
That would also explain the Lincoln Melt picking up rapidly.

I'd probably place a CH4 Sensor (Buoy) into that Blob if I were a Scientist.

magnamentis

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2855 on: August 15, 2018, 05:16:10 PM »
not there yet but the impact is already showing:

- temps aare up by about 5C

- winds up to 80km/h for today, probably higher winds to come.

curious how that remaing runaway-ice will cope with such conditions ;)

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2856 on: August 15, 2018, 05:20:12 PM »
not there yet but the impact is already showing:

- temps aare up by about 5C

- winds up to 80km/h for today, probably higher winds to come.

curious how that remaing runaway-ice will cope with such conditions ;)
The runaway ice is going to be close to or attached to shore imminently. With sun angle now falling rapidly snows are also about to begin falling consistently across AK's North Shore. I think that the falling snows should raise albedo to the point where the combination of extant snowcover + remaining icecover is sufficient to keep the ice intact through the melt season as the cryosphere regenerates along the AK N Shore very rapidly (but I could be wrong).

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2857 on: August 15, 2018, 06:34:53 PM »
No. The Alaskan off-coastal ice can't support snow given waves and low freeboard; albedo and thermal blankets are irrelevant to the prevailing bottom melt and fracture-enhanced lateral melt. Currents here run parallel to the shore, not up against it. Sea ice concentration has been disappearing rapidly in the areal frame shown below, with open water increasing by some 44% since Aug 1st. If this rate continues (1930 pxls per day), the ice will be entirely gone by the first week of September. Even today, the remaining ice is a rounding error (negligible fraction) of the overall pack area and especially volume.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 03:38:45 AM by A-Team »

Phil.

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 540
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 76
  • Likes Given: 11
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2858 on: August 15, 2018, 07:50:16 PM »
Also the weather in the Prudhoe Bay area is forecast to be 50ºF+ over the next several days with strong winds from the W, any precip will be rain not snow so I would expect reduction in the sea ice.

silverslith

  • NewMembers
  • New ice
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 44
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2859 on: August 15, 2018, 09:29:51 PM »
No. The Alaskan off-coastal ice can't support snow given waves and low freeboard; albedo and thermal blankets are irrelevant to the prevailing bottom melt and fracture-enhanced lateral melt. Currents here run parallel to the shore, not up against it. Sea ice concentration has been disappearing rapidly in the areal frame shown below, with open water increasing by some 144% since Aug 1st. If this rate continues (1930 pxls per day), the ice will be entirely gone by the first week of September. Even today, the remaining ice is a rounding error (negligible fraction) of the overall pack area and especially volume.
There's some intriguing anticlockwise vortex effects in the Beaufort CICE concentration and sea surface salinity animations, and radiating circular large scale wave like effects in the lead opening fraction.
Is this an example of the Mixing chimneys you and Veli were talking about earlier?

Rod

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2860 on: August 16, 2018, 05:51:58 AM »
With respect to the discussion about the ice off the Alaskan coast, I agree it will not last long.    However, before it disappears, I recommend for anyone that is not familiar with the Barrow Webcam, that they take a look at it.   

I usually look at the webcam about once a day.  There has not been any ice offshore for a few weeks.  I started watching it more closely about 24 hours ago after I saw the NWS had issued a high surf advisory for point barrow.

It has been fascinating to watch.  About 24 hours ago, small floes of ice started blowing into shore.  About 12 hours ago, the entire shoreline became filled with ice and the waves, which had been fairly large by Barrow standards, died down completely.   Presumably because of the newly formed ice pack. 

For the last 12 hours, some pretty thick pieces of ice have blown onto shore.  Some of it looks like it might be fragments of MYI. 

The ice floes are too small to be detected by the satellite, or included in the extent data.  But they give a good perspective of what some of the loose ice floating around at sea might look like. 

The weather and waves are probably going to melt them pretty soon, so I recommend taking a look fast if you are interested.   You can always go back and watch the time lapse video, but it does not give the same clarity that the still images do when you look at them in real time. 

I can't post a link because I'm on my phone.  But, if you are not familiar with this website,  just google "Barrow Webcam" and it will be at the top of the list. 
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 06:29:22 AM by Rod »

Juan C. García

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3359
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1279
  • Likes Given: 1127
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2861 on: August 16, 2018, 06:08:36 AM »
The good news is that ADS-NIPR (JAXA) is back.

And it seems that on the new status of the Arctic, the low pressure on August is worse to the sea ice, than the sunny days with high pressure.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 06:20:02 AM by Juan C. García »
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

Rod

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2862 on: August 16, 2018, 06:14:52 AM »

And it seems that on the new status of the Arctic, the low pressure on August is worse to the sea ice, that the sunny days with high pressure.

It is very possible that those sunny days primed the ice to be susceptible to rapid melt, if and when a decent low pressure system starts kicking up the waves.  I would not be surprised to see some big numbers if the wave and wind models that people have been posting turn out to be true. 

Phil.

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 540
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 76
  • Likes Given: 11
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2863 on: August 16, 2018, 07:04:00 AM »
You just watch those pieces of ice wash up on the shore and as the waves wash over them they disappear.

Rod

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2864 on: August 16, 2018, 07:22:06 AM »
It is fascinating to watch.  The waves kicked up again a couple of hours ago, and they are destroying thick pieces of ice in a very short time.

It really puts into perspective what actually happens at the sea surface.  You can't get that from watching the satellite images. 

Sebastian Jones

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 716
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 214
  • Likes Given: 158
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2865 on: August 16, 2018, 08:16:37 AM »
It looks like a miserable evening in Barrow- Utqiaġvik officially-even though all the ice seems to have gone:https://www.weatheronline.co.uk/Alaska/Barrow/Webcam.htm

Sterks

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2866 on: August 16, 2018, 09:02:10 AM »
I think the ECMWF predicts bad news for ESS-Laptev, nothing flashy, but simply persistent wind patterns which are not quiet. This is 5 days from now

Jim Hunt

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6268
  • Don't Vote NatC or PopCon, Save Lives!
    • View Profile
    • The Arctic sea ice Great White Con
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 87
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2867 on: August 16, 2018, 01:19:49 PM »
Swedish icebreaker Oden visited the North Pole once again a couple of days ago:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2018/08/oden-reaches-the-north-pole-all-too-easily-once-again/

The sea ice floe Oden is attached to has since drifted slightly in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. This time around instead of being accompanied by Santa Claus the Great British physicist and oceanographer (and BBC TV star!) Helen Czerski is reporting on Oden's adventures.

As indeed is "Snow White"!
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

NeilT

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6275
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 386
  • Likes Given: 22
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2868 on: August 16, 2018, 01:26:52 PM »
Meanwhile Mean temps N of 80N are heading for 0C fast.  It looks like fresh snow on that floe.  I'd say, given the encroachment of the ice from Svalbard anti clockwise, into 80N, that the main CAB is already below 0C.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Robert A. Heinlein

pearscot

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 385
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 190
  • Likes Given: 65
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2869 on: August 16, 2018, 05:14:50 PM »
It is fascinating to watch.  The waves kicked up again a couple of hours ago, and they are destroying thick pieces of ice in a very short time.

It really puts into perspective what actually happens at the sea surface.  You can't get that from watching the satellite images.

Funny you posted that! I was literally going to yesterday, but decided not to. Anyways, I clicked on it and zoomed in saw a decent about of ice rubble against the shore and it looked like the construction equipment was bolstering the seawall for the projected 50+mph winds. Either day, I'm sure that is going to stir up the water a fair amount, though I'm uncertain of the impact it will have on the ice itself. In a few hours the newest anomalies will come in, but the ones from Monday do indicate increased temps, especially above Russia.

EDIT: Here is today's! Slight changes up north compared to Monday...however I expected to see more warmth occur. Similar strangeness occurring in the Hudson Bay.



« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 07:42:38 PM by pearscot »
pls!

VeliAlbertKallio

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 286
  • Eheu fugaces labuntur anni
    • View Profile
    • Sea Research Society (SRS)
  • Liked: 118
  • Likes Given: 134
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2870 on: August 16, 2018, 06:45:42 PM »
On your 3rd animation the large wave-like effects are especially clear but appear in different scales being formed on waters with broken ice (leads). The difference with my 2006 images is that they appeared in the solid part of MYI ice north of the Fram Strait, and were distinguished from ordinary, broken ice floes (= rectangular forms) by the up and down swells (= curvilinear forms) due to some dome-forming effect (density) on sea elevation and stresses by rising and descending currents under the ice. What I think you are seeing on 3rd animation is wind-driven large-scale sorting and arrangement of broken ice (together with the associated sea currents). On region between North Pole and the Fram Strait, the curvilinear "spaghetti" patterns in thick ice must have been made by turbulent sea currents (eddies).

My overall observation about the Arctic Ocean is that today's thinning of sea ice is now exposing a very complicated ocean circulation (due to coriolis effects contained in a very small spatial space - the Polar Ocean) that has a full 360 degree directional spectrum. This combined with the topographic constraints, the obstacles then throwing off course the Coriolis-driven contra-rotation of sea water, wildly, in all possible spatial and vertical directions in this very constrained space. To complicate picture further, there are breakwater loads from the riparian systems, melting permafrost aquifers, melting surface glaciers that all produce variable currents, temperatures and salinity effects besides storm surges on the open, shallow coastal seas. When the sea ice was thick (less splintered MYI), these hidden forces were far harder to discern from that glaring white signal on the sea ice images and missed out. Mathematically it can be said that the system is now more highly chaotic as the new factors like open sea surfaces make its behavior less predictable.

Whilst the above may offer us some relief that all 'new' that has recently been seen may not be after all that new effect, the fact remains that these forces are acting as unleashed as the unemployed sledge dogs now in Ilulissat and may bite us badly in current sea ice conditions. :P

No. The Alaskan off-coastal ice can't support snow given waves and low freeboard; albedo and thermal blankets are irrelevant to the prevailing bottom melt and fracture-enhanced lateral melt. Currents here run parallel to the shore, not up against it. Sea ice concentration has been disappearing rapidly in the areal frame shown below, with open water increasing by some 144% since Aug 1st. If this rate continues (1930 pxls per day), the ice will be entirely gone by the first week of September. Even today, the remaining ice is a rounding error (negligible fraction) of the overall pack area and especially volume.
There's some intriguing anticlockwise vortex effects in the Beaufort CICE concentration and sea surface salinity animations, and radiating circular large scale wave like effects in the lead opening fraction.
Is this an example of the Mixing chimneys you and Veli were talking about earlier?
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 07:04:16 PM by VeliAlbertKallio »
"Setting off atomic bombs is considered socially pungent as the years are made of fleeting ice that are painted by the piling up of the rays of the sun."

Phil.

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 540
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 76
  • Likes Given: 11
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2871 on: August 16, 2018, 07:19:30 PM »
It is fascinating to watch.  The waves kicked up again a couple of hours ago, and they are destroying thick pieces of ice in a very short time.

It really puts into perspective what actually happens at the sea surface.  You can't get that from watching the satellite images.

Funny you posted that! I was literally going to yesterday, but decided not to. Anyways, I clicked on it and zoomed in saw a decent about of ice rubble against the shore and it looked like the construction equipment was bolstering the seawall for the projected 50+mph winds. Either day, I'm sure that is going to stir up the water a fair amount, though I'm uncertain of the impact it will have on the ice itself. In a few hours the newest anomalies will come in, but the ones from Monday do indicate increased temps, especially above Russia.


Yeah, the Dogbark took the precaution of taking cover from the gale behind Tigvariak Island yesterday.
http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Dogbark

charles_oil

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 337
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 38
  • Likes Given: 74
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2872 on: August 16, 2018, 08:55:45 PM »
Thanks Phil -


Maybe you would like to start a thread for their expedition progress and see how they get on in Dogbark! - I found:
http://arcticnorthwestpassage.blogspot.com/2018/08/northwest-passage-on-dogbark.html

Jim Hunt

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6268
  • Don't Vote NatC or PopCon, Save Lives!
    • View Profile
    • The Arctic sea ice Great White Con
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 87
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2873 on: August 16, 2018, 09:35:50 PM »
You just watch those pieces of ice wash up on the shore and as the waves wash over them they disappear.

The best place to watch those waves in action is the "official" webcam page:

http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam

Once they've updated the 1 day video download it and then watch the ice melt before your eyes to your heart's content.

Here is my report on a previous such episode:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/08/barrow-battered-by-big-waves/
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2874 on: August 16, 2018, 10:57:32 PM »
Quote
Swedish icebreaker Oden visited the North Pole once again
If only they would tweet a few useful things like measured ice thickness and the floe's prior track history (which I doubt they've determined). The NP itself is actually a little unfavorable because it is in the 'pole hole' of so many satellites.

Quote
Neven asks: why are all these side fjords busting up and landfast ice breaking off... is it just the late summer date, does it happen every year, or is this surge from the WSC cracking them off with higher sea level?
The first animation, 5 days of 'Lincoln Sea' Sentinels from DMI, shows that side fjord action has progressed all the way around the north end of Greenland to the east side of the Lincoln Sea ... and it isn't done yet.

The mp4, from an .avi movie in the paper below may take several reloads before it displays, shows modeled eddies coming off the WSC  between the Yermak Plateau and Nord, Greenland over a year. Some neutrally buoyant floats at 300 m have also been recovered to the north. The magenta marks show the location of a long-standing mooring array.

Quite a bit of the Gulf Stream peels off along the way as return flow and never makes it to the Arctic Ocean. The mp4 features one circling about the Malloy Deep. However, Atlantic Water eddies and branches have not been previously reported all the way west to Greenland's continental shelf, as we are hypothesizing here.

Note the whole Euro side of the ice pack out to the Laptev shrunk more or less synchronously (without any clear coordinating mechanism though, 3rd animation). There is a gap in UH AMSR2 coverage for the 16th but the 17th shows the ice pulsing outward along the SV corridor (where it will later melt, the water being too warm).

The north Greenland open water gap of 17 days may partly seal over from ice eddies though lift-off is propagating all along the CAA shoreline and M'Clure export has really taken off in the Parry Channel.

The early February cyclone that barreled up the Fram, backed up ice and possibly warm Atlantic Waters into the upper funnel may have preconditioned the event unfolding now. However it was not until after the SSW of Feb 12th that the peculiar opening off north Greenland began. It ran from Feb 13th to Mar 12th (see Aug 11th SSW discussion), perhaps bringing a retro WSC current eddy into Nord and Morris Jesup. The relevant Feb freeze season forum section begins at:

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2141.msg141094.html#msg141094

Eddy‐driven recirculation of Atlantic Water in Fram Strait
T Hattermann et al2 4 March 2016
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL068323 free

Quote
Eddy‐resolving regional ocean model results in conjunction with synthetic float trajectories and observations provide new insights into the recirculation of the Atlantic Water (AW) in Fram Strait that significantly impacts the redistribution of oceanic heat between the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean. The simulations confirm the existence of a cyclonic gyre around the Molloy Hole near 80°N, suggesting that most of the AW within the West Spitsbergen Current recirculates there, while colder AW recirculates in a westward mean flow south of 79°N that primarily relates to the eastern rim of the Greenland Sea Gyre. The fraction of waters recirculating in the northern branch roughly doubles during winter, coinciding with a seasonal increase of eddy activity along the Yermak Plateau slope that also facilitates subduction of AW beneath the ice edge in this area.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 03:32:27 PM by A-Team »

Jim Hunt

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6268
  • Don't Vote NatC or PopCon, Save Lives!
    • View Profile
    • The Arctic sea ice Great White Con
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 87
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2875 on: August 17, 2018, 01:08:36 AM »
If only they would tweet a few useful things like measured ice thickness

According to Helen Czerski:

Quote
We kept going north, and yesterday morning, we woke up just 5.5 nautical miles from the North Pole, with very heavy ice between us and the pole.  That's apparently well within the official limits for having visited the pole, so the crew lowered the gangway and we were allowed out on the ice for the first time.....

I've spent many months of my life on ships but I have never stepped off one in the middle of an ocean on to the water, walked away and then turned around to look back at the ship I've been living on.  We were standing on a metre-thick surface shell, with four kilometres of water separating us from the seafloor mountain range below.


"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2504
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 744
  • Likes Given: 40
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2876 on: August 17, 2018, 03:30:51 AM »
WHOI ITP 108 is going to exit the plot page tomorrow or the next day. It's course makes me wonder how much fresh water is exiting the Arctic via the garlic press. This will be the first time in the six years I have been watching that we will have zero ITP buoys in the Arctic. The Beaufort Gyre is not very healthy right now and that I believe has consequences for retention of the surface fresh water lens.
 If someone out there with more knowledge than I ( that's a long list) might comment on the gyre and it's current health I would appreciate it. Something seems very different this year.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=160136

Here is a paper on the question asked above

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=66597

Is this what we are seeing ?
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 04:08:12 AM by Bruce Steele »

silverslith

  • NewMembers
  • New ice
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 44
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2877 on: August 17, 2018, 05:00:28 AM »
WHOI ITP 108 is going to exit the plot page tomorrow or the next day. It's course makes me wonder how much fresh water is exiting the Arctic via the garlic press. This will be the first time in the six years I have been watching that we will have zero ITP buoys in the Arctic. The Beaufort Gyre is not very healthy right now and that I believe has consequences for retention of the surface fresh water lens.
 If someone out there with more knowledge than I ( that's a long list) might comment on the gyre and it's current health I would appreciate it. Something seems very different this year.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=160136

Here is a paper on the question asked above

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=66597

Is this what we are seeing ?
If there was any doubt that the Beaufort is surging out through the CAA, itp 108 has just removed it. Currently barrelling out the southernmost channel of the CAA at a brisk 3.5kmph and experiencing 32-33psu waters uniformly above freezing. This channel is usually feeding out of the CAA into the Beaufort. Not flushing at over 80km per day.


doogi

  • New ice
  • Posts: 13
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2878 on: August 17, 2018, 01:07:44 PM »
According to the weekly newsletter the ice is quite thick but manageable  and comparable to 2005.

http://www.sjofartsverket.se/pages/111200/Veckobrev%20fr%c3%a5n%20Isbrytaren%20Oden%202018-08-09.pdf

SMHI posts daily observations of weather data taken on Oden

http://www.smhi.se/klimatdata/2.1090

Swedish Polar Research Secretariat has a blog about the expedition

https://polarforskningsportalen.se/arktis/expeditioner/arctic-ocean-2018/bloggar

And a website about all their research in in the polar regions

https://polar.se/

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2879 on: August 17, 2018, 03:49:15 PM »
Quote
Beaufort is surging out through the CAA, itp 108 has just removed it. Currently barreling out the southernmost channel of the CAA [Amundsen Gulf] at a brisk 3.5 knots and experiencing 32-33 psu waters uniformly above freezing. This channel is usually feeding out of the CAA into the Beaufort. Not flushing at over 80km per day.
The whole CAA is coming loose, detaching from the basin ice pack which itself is lifting off from Nord to Banks Island, rotating CCW. The fringe of the ice pack can be seen kicking off concentration into the Amundsen Gulf which melts out the next day. Note the double and quadruple parallel fractures on both sides  of Ellef Ringnes (lobster-shaped island) as internal CAA ice pulls away from the main pack.

NSIDC, relying on Old Arctic metrics, may come to regret the news item they just posted -- this melting season isn't what it seems.

Tech note: the August 15th of UH AMSR2 is missing below and unlikely ever to be recovered.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 06:02:08 PM by A-Team »

GoSouthYoungins

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1427
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 150
  • Likes Given: 109
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2880 on: August 17, 2018, 04:07:23 PM »
Maybe I'm conceptualizing this wrong and I'd be better off posting this in "stupid questions" but I think I'm more likely to get a good response here.  Is there a possibility the currents in the arctic have basically reversed? Could the whole pack drift all the way to Russia?
big time oops

El Cid

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2507
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 923
  • Likes Given: 225
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2881 on: August 17, 2018, 04:08:47 PM »
Quote
B
The whole CAA is coming loose, detaching from the basin ice pack which itself is lifting off from Nord to Banks Island, rotating CCW.

Wow, that looks amazning! Is such a detachment a first, or have we seen something like this in previous years?

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2882 on: August 17, 2018, 04:22:27 PM »
Quote
possibile the currents in the arctic have basically reversed? Could the whole pack drift all the way to Russia? similar detachments in previous years?
A freely floating ice pack, just blowing in the wind (not so much by currents), has not been raised often as a concern because winds have held it against the CAA where temperatures are colder and winter thickening more dependable.

The weather pattern broke down in early June 2018 and no consistent anti-cyclonic ice movement has been seen since. This can be seen in the chaotic sequence of daily motion vectors at OSI-SAF.

http://osisaf.met.no/p/osisaf_hlprod_qlook.php?year=2018&month=02&day=09&action=Today&prod=LR-Drift&area=NH&size=100%25

To repeat once more, we are not much concerned with air pressure per se, which though an important driver of event is merely a weak upstream proxy. It is ice movement at the end of the day that matters, as shown on Ascat or tracked daily at OSI-SAF. And that depends on many other factors other than pressure contours and gradients, such as sails and sea anchors (pressure ridges and underwater keels).

A freely floating ice pack would be a "major development" because the ice pack could drift off into warmer waters or break up into several smaller pieces, both of which exacerbate ice volume and extent loss.

I don't recall seeing detachments quite like this before, it is easy enough to check August back to 2012: no two years are alike, Augusts are not always comparable, some detachments can be seen. The animation rows, top to bottom, are 17-16, 15-14,13-12.

Note the main Northwest Passage isn't going to open up at this rate because M'Clure Strait is constantly being stuffed with CAB ice. A roundabout passage may open up on a few days however.

Below, a new version of Oct 15-May 30 Ascat of ice motion in and along the CAA. Lateral detachment, corks bobbing, blocks tumbling, lift-offs and immense lead fracturing etc can be seen. As FishOut notes below, the thick landfast ice is gone; the ice now is extremely mobile just off shore, with big blocks tumbling end over end this year and MYI thinning in extent and even disappearing entirely.

So yes, things may be moving to WIPD (whole ice pack detachment) en route to a BOE (blue ocean event) but WIPD competes with more certain trends such as overall area or volume loss that could precede or moot it.

Or not: the png at bottom shows what remains to happen to achieve total detachment (taken as a path around the entire ice pack of open water to <20% concentration). Even if the ice does hit WIPD this month, without winds moving the pack well offshore, it will simply freeze back onto land in October. Note though the CAA continental shelf is very narrow so it wouldn't take much to create an apron of FYI around the entire pack perimeter.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 09:24:12 PM by A-Team »

FishOutofWater

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1088
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 696
  • Likes Given: 332
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2883 on: August 17, 2018, 04:39:10 PM »
Areas along the coast of Greenland and the CAA that used to be covered with thick landfast ice are now exposed to the winds. On a large scale, much of the Arctic ocean used to be covered with thick, slow moving, ice. Today's thinner pack moves faster and is more responsive to the winds.

A number of papers predict more flow through the CAA as ice thins and breaks up in the channels of the CAA earlier in the melt season. We may be seeing some changes now in the currents in the CAA, but mostly we are seeing the effects of a thinner, more mobile, ice pack.

El Cid

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2507
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 923
  • Likes Given: 225
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2884 on: August 17, 2018, 06:10:57 PM »
thanks to you all, i keep learning things here every day!

RoxTheGeologist

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 625
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 188
  • Likes Given: 149
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2885 on: August 17, 2018, 06:48:01 PM »
Areas along the coast of Greenland and the CAA that used to be covered with thick landfast ice are now exposed to the winds. On a large scale, much of the Arctic ocean used to be covered with thick, slow moving, ice. Today's thinner pack moves faster and is more responsive to the winds.

A number of papers predict more flow through the CAA as ice thins and breaks up in the channels of the CAA earlier in the melt season. We may be seeing some changes now in the currents in the CAA, but mostly we are seeing the effects of a thinner, more mobile, ice pack.

That's a really good point. Won't it also makes the exposed coastal water more vulnerable to Eckman pumping and coastal upwelling (as you suggested is happening on the North Greenland coast)?

Both of the above will serve to break down the all important ice preserving density stratification through vertical mixing.. and perhaps allow the coastal glaciers to be exposed to warmer water.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2886 on: August 17, 2018, 06:58:18 PM »
Quote
predict more flow through the CAA as ice thins and breaks up in the channels of the CAA
Next five days look to be 'more of the same', winds to the south through western CAA. On visible ice export, it is difficult to disentangle floes just sailing with the wind from floating along in a current. To a certain extent, ice entrains a surface layer of water to move with it. With buoys, it depends on whether they are fixed in a floe, free floating, and what-all equipment they are trailing below the surface.

WHOI ITP 108 is an 'ice tethered profiler' with a steel cable down to 760 m depth. It was deployed on a 0.5 m thick ice floe in the Beaufort Sea on September 16, 2017 at 80° N, 140° W as part of the Beaufort Gyre Observing System. A seasonal IMB Buoy 3 was installed on the same floe.

Water is far too shallow in the Amundsen Gulf for the profiler to fully deploy; its last reading was to 253 m. There are no assurances that the its trajectory was representative for the region of initial deployment -- the floe next door might have ended up in the Chukchi. More to the point, a huge stringer of thick floes to its south, well east of Banks Island, has been followed up the Alaskan coast to Barrow before heading north. Floe trajectories can and do cross, just not at the same time.

If copious amounts of water are in fact leaving the Arctic Basin, it must be in balance with, and perhaps in response to, equally copious amounts of water coming in. The Bering Strait sometimes contributes but more often inflows and outflows are erratic and low in volume because of the 53 m sill. The Nares has consistent outflows, as is visible most of the year.

What I'm getting at here, if the East Greenland Current has not slowed its outflows, that puts even more of a burden on WSC inflows, perhaps supporting the notion of a westward surge of the AW eddy volume around the Malloy Deep towards Morris Jesup that has been causing the open water turbulent event now reaching beyond the Lincoln Sea.

« Last Edit: August 18, 2018, 01:55:40 AM by A-Team »

Pmt111500

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2887 on: August 17, 2018, 07:17:51 PM »
Quote
B
The whole CAA is coming loose, detaching from the basin ice pack which itself is lifting off from Nord to Banks Island, rotating CCW.

Wow, that looks amazning! Is such a detachment a first, or have we seen something like this in previous years?
2015 came close to this, but it's a record i think. Ekman pumping (tidally generated) pulling the ice off shore if the winds won't counterbalance the movement. Now if there was a deep atmospheric depression on the west side of CAA, we'd see some rather unpleasant things happening to the ice.  I guess I'm (once again) hitting too low on my guesses for the minima for the ice. Thanks all for posting charts and explaining stuff we're seeing. Arctic is not what it used to be. We might not get Green Sahara but a Blue Arctic Ocean. (Is there a section on Green Sahara here?, goes to check it out)

PMT

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2888 on: August 17, 2018, 07:21:31 PM »
Quote
B
The whole CAA is coming loose, detaching from the basin ice pack which itself is lifting off from Nord to Banks Island, rotating CCW.

Wow, that looks amazning! Is such a detachment a first, or have we seen something like this in previous years?
2015 came close to this, but it's a record i think. Ekman pumping (tidally generated) pulling the ice off shore if the winds won't counterbalance the movement. Now if there was a deep atmospheric depression on the west side of CAA, we'd see some rather unpleasant things happening to the ice.  I guess I'm (once again) hitting too low on my guesses for the minima for the ice. Thanks all for posting charts and explaining stuff we're seeing. Arctic is not what it used to be. We might not get Green Sahara but a Blue Arctic Ocean. (Is there a section on Green Sahara here?, goes to check it out)

PMT

We actually have had a persistent depression on the west side of the CAA this summer! I think the impact to the ice itself has been muted due to the excess snowcover over the CAA / the ice within the CAA. But it has definitely been notable.


Pmt111500

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2889 on: August 17, 2018, 07:22:58 PM »
Quote
B
The whole CAA is coming loose, detaching from the basin ice pack which itself is lifting off from Nord to Banks Island, rotating CCW.

Wow, that looks amazning! Is such a detachment a first, or have we seen something like this in previous years?
2015 came close to this, but it's a record i think. Ekman pumping (tidally generated) pulling the ice off shore if the winds won't counterbalance the movement. Now if there was a deep atmospheric depression on the west side of CAA, we'd see some rather unpleasant things happening to the ice.  I guess I'm (once again) hitting too low on my guesses for the minima for the ice. Thanks all for posting charts and explaining stuff we're seeing. Arctic is not what it used to be. We might not get Green Sahara but a Blue Arctic Ocean. (Is there a section on Green Sahara here?, goes to check it out)

PMT

We actually have had a persistent depression on the west side of the CAA this summer! I think the impact to the ice itself has been muted due to the excess snowcover over the CAA / the ice within the CAA. But it has definitely been notable.
Anomaly is not a depression but i appreciate the enthusiasm

Gray-Wolf

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 948
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 131
  • Likes Given: 458
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2890 on: August 17, 2018, 09:01:20 PM »
I'm keeping my mind wide open to the waters south of N. Svalbard when /if ice is pushed its way?

If we are yet to see a big storm plough into the centre what would become of ice pushed into W.Beaufort /Chukchi or Fram entrance?

We ( I believe?) are entering a time where central ice , being fragmented and faulted, can be thrown out of the central areas into 'hostile' wasters?

Melt season is evolving into a new 'timing'/dynamic with " Fat Lady Singing" needing to accommodate a central mass able to be thrown into waters that are still able to melt?

We may see compensatory refreeze in central areas but that area/extent is brand new ice?
KOYAANISQATSI

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

Dharma Rupa

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 493
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 52
  • Likes Given: 26
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2891 on: August 17, 2018, 09:16:31 PM »
We ( I believe?) are entering a time where central ice , being fragmented and faulted, can be thrown out of the central areas into 'hostile' wasters?

Melt season is evolving into a new 'timing'/dynamic with " Fat Lady Singing" needing to accommodate a central mass able to be thrown into waters that are still able to melt?

I'll wait another half month before answering you:

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2892 on: August 17, 2018, 09:26:57 PM »
The early southerly dislocation of the cryosphere is going to prove increasingly impactful if the recent models are to be believed.

D4:



D7:



D10:



If this keeps up, Hudson Bay could begin refreezing before much of the High Arctic. Combined with the freshwater discharge from Beaufort, we could be looking at an even worse refreezing season for the Pacific and ATL fronts, as the early establishment of the cryosphere over NRN Canada is going to scoop enormous amounts of heat north into the ATL. The lack of freshwater / active typhoon season will do the same to the NPAC.

I am attaching the below not as a segue into continental snow, but as an illustration of what the 12z EURO is now showing across northern Canada. Snows are beginning to fall in a prolific way across higher elevations of the northern mid-latitudes, and just about everywhere further north.

While weak ice may be moving through the CAA, I do not think much melt will occur -- the CAA and the southern CAB should be the first regions to begin refreeze this year, and it may begin happening as soon as next week.

Bruce Steele

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2504
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 744
  • Likes Given: 40
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2893 on: August 17, 2018, 09:36:11 PM »
Rox, I found this recent paper that describes Ekman pumping in the Beaufort gyre. There are two years in the record with anomalous Ekman pumping events, 2007 and 2012. 2007 was a down welling anomaly and 2012 was an upwelling event.  It may be we are seeing something similar to the 2007 event , anti cyclonic conditions, described on page nine of the PDF.
( I really blew this, we are in cyclonic conditions so more like 2012 ) please ignor last sentence above,
http://oceans.mit.edu/JohnMarshall/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/meneghello2018governor.pdf

bbr2314, If this year is similar to 2007 do you see anything in the 2007-2008 freezing season we should look to as something analogus to what you are predicting? 

A-Team , I agree that the profiler is not working for its intended use anymore but the tracker still is sending out information re. Location and its entry into the Amundsen was a tell on water movements.
 
« Last Edit: August 18, 2018, 08:34:56 AM by Bruce Steele »

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2894 on: August 17, 2018, 09:40:54 PM »
Rox, I found this recent paper that describes Ekman pumping in the Beaufort gyre. There are two years in the record with anomalous Ekman pumping events, 2007 and 2012. 2007 was a down welling anomaly and 2012 was an upwelling event.  It may be we are seeing something similar to the 2007 event , anti cyclonic conditions, described on page nine of the PDF.

http://oceans.mit.edu/JohnMarshall/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/meneghello2018governor.pdf

bbr2314, If this year is similar to 2007 do you see anything in the 2007-2008 freezing season we should look to as something analogus to what you are predicting?
I do not think this year will be similar to 2007-2008. Besides the possible similarity of Beaufort Gyre reversal the hemispheric patterns are very different overall. We are likely to be +ENSO this year and the PDO is also opposite to 07-08. 07-08 also had nowhere near the warmth we've seen over Scandinavia / Europe.

IMO, any year pre-2012 is not really relevant to our current climate as I think we hit a tipping point that year. 14-15 may be a good analog, which means a bad refreeze and a bad year for sea ice in 2019 as well as a potential major El Nino event.

Shared Humanity

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2895 on: August 18, 2018, 12:37:29 AM »
The early southerly dislocation of the cryosphere is going to prove increasingly impactful if the recent models are to be believed.

We are now labeling weather "the cryosphere"?

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2896 on: August 18, 2018, 01:01:04 AM »
<snip, no need for sarcasm or insults; N.>
« Last Edit: August 21, 2018, 09:21:04 AM by Neven »

slow wing

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 823
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 155
  • Likes Given: 546
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2897 on: August 18, 2018, 01:22:32 AM »
NSIDC ice concentration maps show a week's action in the Arctic basin, ending on the map most recently released, 2018-08-16 - see first figure.

There is a low concentration region showing that, if it happened to melt out completely, would snip off the corner of the main ice pack that extends into the Beaufort Sea. Presumably too late in the season for that though. Rather than the ice melting out, the low concentration region has presumably arisen largely from the ice floes there being separated by winds from the low pressure system currently in the CAA - as shown in the second figure.

The U. Bremen site that I had been using previously has been down for several days. Do we know why and have the reasons been posted here?
« Last Edit: August 18, 2018, 01:39:02 AM by slow wing »

DavidR

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 740
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 36
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2898 on: August 18, 2018, 05:07:47 AM »
I'm keeping my mind wide open to the waters south of N. Svalbard when /if ice is pushed its way?

Its interesting to see how cold that area was in July. According to NOAA the area from 20W - 90E, 85N - 80N had the lowest sea surface temperatures since 1948 and the 10th lowest air temperatures. 2012 was also extremely low (SST 4th lowest, air 11th lowest) on both measures. Its a clear example of the effect of open waters reducing air temperatures because of reduced albedo.  With the sea temperatures I presume it is a consequence of the pack being more dispersed and ice melting in more areas preventing  temperatures rising

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

Pmt111500

  • Guest
Re: The 2018 melting season
« Reply #2899 on: August 18, 2018, 07:17:02 AM »
Quote

The U. Bremen site that I had been using previously has been down for several days. Do we know why and have the reasons been posted here?
Always assume nefarious intent from the usual suspects. Of course I don't have proof they had to move it for disorderly behavior. Politics is not science so I suggest take these insinuating questions elsewhere.