The 2019 melting season

[magnamentis]

I share a certain gloomy feeling about this year compared to what happened in the past two seasons
* NH temp anomalies back to record territory
* A distinct ring of negative snow cover anomaly is forming all around the NH including US and Canada where abundant winter snowfall is now melting quickly. Google rutgers ice lab (sorry getting too old to download resize and crop as needed). This signals early Spring, generalized, did not happen since 2016.
* Oceanic anomalous heat input since beginning of year is apparent esp. thru Bering.
* Record low extent may not be determinant, but sure won’t help
* The preconditioning in Kara and Chukchi may be real, will refreeze but again, won’t help
* The thickest ice is again tilted against the Atlantic
Anything can happen but I have a bad feeling that I didn’t have since 2015. Ok I thought that was it in 2017 too, but fell again in the trap of “low thickness will trump weather”. Weather trumps all.

+1

[El Cid]

The biggest change this spring is that the Bering is wide open. No other year - except for 2018 - had this pattern (see comparison with 2016 attached). Every other year, we had much more ice in the Bering Sea. It seems that Pacification is really happening right now, in front of our eyes.
Besides, it is going to be quite warm in the Bering-Chukchi area the next week or so. A strong attack from the Pacific side seems likely this summer

[Gray-Wolf]

It seems that Pacification is really happening right now, in front of our eyes.

I think we know that Nino events can , via Kelvin waves, push warm surface waters up the U.S. coast and into the basin via Bering?

Now we are in a low grade nino event but no big Kelvin waves have really had impact but we should remember the state of the Interdecadal Pacific oscillation since 2014?

Since 2014 this natural forcing has been in its positive state. This means that, over its area of influence , warmed surface waters are present ( instead of being buried in the upper ocean?) .Will this mean twenty odd years of ever warmer surface waters pushing in from the Pacific side of the basin?

It's early days but maybe we have left it long enough to expect more melt over the Pacific side as Pacific ocean currents begin to deliver these warmed surface waters ?

[epiphyte]

The biggest change this spring is that the Bering is wide open.

Biggest change to the ice, yes... but also look at Alaska from Beaufort to the Pacific over the past 10 days. For my money, the last time it was that green was 2011 - which was the crappiest year ever for Beaufort+CAA.

[sark]

the cold of the polar cell doesn't sit still any more, not content to simply reach out long wings of air outbreaks.  now it's closer to chaos.  I say "now" as November 2016 and Now being primary examples of complete and total breakdown of the polar cell.

It's only been wildly unstable for 20 years.  Something's gotta give.

[El Cid]

November 2016 and Now being primary examples of complete and total breakdown of the polar cell.

Where do we see a " complete and total breakdown" of the polar cell?

[uniquorn]

umi-bremen smos, apr5 2011-2019.
mercator(model) salinity 0m, mar1-apr5.

[pauldry600]

Think melt will slow this coming week and 2nd place will be "only" 100k away again.

Still time for a further slowdown and melt to finish in top 5 at end instead of this rather false position its in now

[Jacobus]

November 2016 and Now being primary examples of complete and total breakdown of the polar cell.

Where do we see a " complete and total breakdown" of the polar cell?

Good question. Based purely on observation I'd say the breakdown has been in progress for some time, but is not yet complete and total. The polar cell is severely weakened and on its way out in the coming years, but still alive for now.

[Shared Humanity]

Actually, the position it is in is exactly the position it is in. Useful to try to understand the processes that cause it to be in this position.

[FishOutofWater]

The unprecedented drop in sea ice extent, area and volume for late March and the first week of April is the result of unprecedented warm air advection from the Pacific and Atlantic ocean regions into the Arctic. It is as real as hitting your thumb with a hammer.

Maybe the weather will cool off and the melting will slow down, but reality is that Alaska just had the warmest March on record and the past 2 years have had record low amounts of ice in the Bering sea in March and early April. This is reality.

[bbr2314]

JAXA -90K. At 13.01M KM^2. Woof.

[wdmn]

JAXA -90K. At 13.01M KM^2. Woof.

Your numbers don't match what Juan just posted.

[Pmt111500]

The unprecedented drop in sea ice extent, area and volume for late March and the first week of April is the result of unprecedented warm air advection from the Pacific and Atlantic ocean regions into the Arctic. It is as real as hitting your thumb with a hammer.

Maybe the weather will cool off and the melting will slow down, but reality is that Alaska just had the warmest March on record and the past 2 years have had record low amounts of ice in the Bering sea in March and early April. This is reality.

Long ago (2005?) tried to find annual patterns of ice melt from the charts available by then. This of course was pretty much an impossible task due ENSO, which throws off much of currents of the North Pacific. Nevertheless, taking ENSO-phase in account, there might have been some. Now that the current system has likely changed somewhat, there's also more data so someone might try to find speedy localized melting periods (or flash freezing) connected to ENSO phase. But of course, summer (and autumn, and winter partly) Arctic atmosphere has changed too from those early days so the patterns I dreamt of seeing might not be there. 3 occurrences do not a theory make, though might apply for a hypothese. The ENSO dependent patterns of ice melt might also occur on Antarctic side of things, though ACC, reaching very deep, probably prevents that.

[bbr2314]

JAXA -90K. At 13.01M KM^2. Woof.

Your numbers don't match what Juan just posted.

Oops. Was -78K. Mis-math'd. Still bad! We should clear 13M KM^2 tomorrow.

[Neven]

The pace of JAXA SIE drops is quite stunning, given that it's already so low. And it might continue to stun, as the current forecast points quite simply to a dipole that may cause open water along the Beaufort coasts, and things aren't looking all that great for the ice in the Kara either.

Last year we had a similar situation around this time, and I'll repeat what I said back then: The Arctic is extremely lucky it isn't mid-May yet.

Here's the forecast for the coming days, the high pressure isn't as high as last year, but the direction of the isobars (towards the Atlantic) is much more pronounced:

[Jim Hunt]

Wipneus' UH high resolution extent fell 129k:

[uniquorn]

Sea of Okhotsk drop is almost vertical.

Update on Laptev, refreeze just about keeping up with the mobile ice. More southerlies are forecast, cool though.
For comparison, worldview, laptev apr7, 2010-2019

[uniquorn]

Laptev mar31-apr7

[uniquorn]

CAA end of the Beaufort stringer nudges back to a more normal southerly position opening up multiple fractures further north.
Thickest ice next to CAA briefly lifts off opening a temporary fracture northwards.
Nares still open. Fram export strong.
CAB to Barentsz export fairly neutral.
Kara mostly exporting to Barentsz rather than CAB.
Old Laptev ice drifts westwards past SZ.
Old CAB ice edge drifts ever nearer to the pole.
ESS tendril stretched further.
Chukchi battles with the Pacific

ascat day57-96(heavy contrast)

[Jim Hunt]

A close up look at the FMI merged Cryosat-2/SMOS thickness for both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2019/04/facts-about-the-arctic-in-april-2019/#Apr-07

Apart from the usual thick ice queueing for the Fram Strait exit there’s not a lot to prevent the comparatively swift early melt from continuing apace.

[Gray-Wolf]

I can't help but see the losses via fram/nares in human terms.

When Nares is bridged then Fram looks like vomiting.

When fram is open it is a gent taking a seat in the little room......

Either way there is far too much goodness leaching from the basin!

[Niall Dollard]

ascat day 96(heavy contrast)

I wonder how long the thicker ice in the Beaufort will hold out/rotate and the ESS arm, come late summer ?

Looking at that last ascat image, probably best you could hope for, by September, is the extent line holding at this magenta line. I expect a big bite will emerge over the Laptev and as usual the ESS arm will be attacked from Pacific intrusion and from the Laptev side.

[FishOutofWater]

The open Nares strait is preventing the build up of thick ice on NW Greenland and the NE CAA. The impact is subtle but important later in the year. This situation is helping thick ice exit the Arctic.

[Stephan]

I thank uniquorn for this amazing sequence.
For my understanding there is too much ice leaving the CAB through Fram and Nares. Has it been that active the last years? Maybe I can't recall correctly, but it looks like 'much more' than before which is not good...

[Thomas Barlow]

This looks very broken up, more than usual?

[Pmt111500]

This looks very broken up, more than usual?

For random visitors, this is the familiar North Shore of Greenland, the rounded fractures are on the Nares strait entrance, the webbed mesh of old ice is moving towards Fram strait.

I've certainly seen both this broken up but not sure if it was April. Perhaps on May. Betting the Bering strait is getting some strong currents northwards.

[Thomas Barlow]

Sorry, should have said where it was. Thanks.

[uniquorn]

ascat day 96(heavy contrast)

I wonder how long the thicker ice in the Beaufort will hold out/rotate and the ESS arm, come late summer ?

Hopefully the magenta line will hold, but I doubt it. Last melting season was cloudy and the Beaufort string had a higher percentage of MYI than this year (imo). Some of it may have survived in the 'slush that wouldn't melt'. Ascat is good for tracking but not necessarily a good indicator of ice thickness.
image1: The best recent viirs brightness temperature image of the stringer I could find is apr4 (https://go.nasa.gov/2FVzQtj) Darker is colder and almost certainly thicker. Alaskan coast on left. It is already recently fractured and the slightly older 'glue ice' is clearly visible.
image2: A selection of thickness products. The stringer doesn't feature heavily in any of them and the ess arm looks like it will become isolated.
Based on recent drift it's also likely that the older laptev ice will be consumed by the warm current close to FJL while the older CAB ice may just about keep the pole frozen.

Long live the magenta line

[bbr2314]

I have fixed the September 2019 map for everyone. I think all the FYI beyond the red line is incredibly thin this year and will be prone to severe melt ponding and very early melt-out. Wave action will take care of the MYI tendrils that remain. I know some / everyone disagrees but I think we are already seeing melt ponding begin to percolate through most areas beyond the red line thanks to recent weather.

It should be noted that North American snowcover is now rebounding slightly while Eurasia continues to plunge. North America should follow again by May but I think the Eurasian plunge will be sustained through that point (as is climo, but possibly worse than climo). We've been watching the Bering plunge year after year but it looks like this could be the first super early melt-out of Kara in a few years. That could help set the stage for a domino effect of impacts on the Siberian Seas from both ATL and PAC. I think things are lining up very badly for Beaufort, Chukchi, ESS, Laptev, and Kara.

Finally: the Okhotsk extent collapse has been severe and dramatic. Okhotsk is one of the two farthest regions from the Pole for significant icecover (the other being Hudson Bay / SE Canada). Now that Okhotsk is going and most of the SE Canada ice is gone (and Baffin is following), I wonder if Hudson's status as sole remaining area of thick ice could encourage a "stuck" weather pattern promoting ice retention there into May and June (with another late melt-out, though let's wait until June to gauge exactly when as it could be well into August this yr). Quebec is once again purple. And the ice in Hudson is certainly quite thick. This combination could also result in the continued ejection of Arctic / Greenland airmasses towards the Canadian -500MB anomaly centered over HB, leaving the aforementioned PAC / Siberian seas increasingly vulnerable.

Perhaps nothing to consider but it will be interesting to watch the 500MB pattern evolve as we head towards solstice and this is something I will be keeping an eye out for. It certainly seems to be occurring right now looking at April's 500MB anomaly map.

PPS: also attaching the last 30 days of temperature anomalies. The Eurasian heat is largely unprecedented IMO. I think this portends a very very nasty fire season across much of Siberia as well as the Rockies / Yukon. As the snowcover melts, these areas in red are going to turn into a blast furnace and there will be large plumes of dark carbon drifting into the Arctic by solstice, IMO.

[jdallen]

This looks very broken up, more than usual?

For random visitors, this is the familiar North Shore of Greenland, the rounded fractures are on the Nares strait entrance, the webbed mesh of old ice is moving towards Fram strait.

I've certainly seen both this broken up but not sure if it was April. Perhaps on May. Betting the Bering strait is getting some strong currents northwards.

There have been years where the near-Fram CAB has been this broken up this early, perhaps not quite so finely divided.  I believe we are a few weeks early.

[Frivolousz21]

Unless there is a legit Arctic dipole anomaly with a negative NOA after May 15th through June.

what's happening now just won't cut it if you're looking for records without that.


I don't know if we can say we are due.

But we are due.

[El Cid]

Although I also think that 2019 has a good chance of breaking previous records, if we look at extent maps, all we see is that 2019 is very similar to 2018 at this point. The difference with previous years is completely due to the Bering which has been going thru Pacification the past 2 years. This might be enough to break the proverbial camel's back. Or it might not. It was not enough in 2018...

[Aluminium]

April 2-7.

[Killian]

This looks very broken up, more than usual?

For random visitors, this is the familiar North Shore of Greenland, the rounded fractures are on the Nares strait entrance, the webbed mesh of old ice is moving towards Fram strait.

I've certainly seen both this broken up but not sure if it was April. Perhaps on May. Betting the Bering strait is getting some strong currents northwards.

There have been years where the near-Fram CAB has been this broken up this early, perhaps not quite so finely divided.  I believe we are a few weeks early.

More than usual, meaning average, certainly. This is the worst extent of breakup for Nares going all the way back to 2010 on these dates. 2010 was worse for the ice north of Greenland and the CArch. There was one other really bad year for basin ice... forget which.

Overall, anomalous and partly unprecedented. I've felt for years that the Nares acts like a bathtub stopper a little, creating room when it goes for more movement of the ice north of the CArch and Greenland, speeding up the whole darned thing, basically.

Nope, done no studies.

Anybody?

[Killian]

BTW, is it my imagination or did we, according to JAXA, just blow through 1m km. sq. in six days? (Previous record for blowing through the 14m~13m range was 14 days if I'm reading the Petitt bar graph right.)

[oren]

April 2-7.

It seems movement into the Kara and and the Chukchi has stopped in the last 2-3 days
Maybe there is a chance of some recovery.

[oren]

BTW, is it my imagination or did we, according to JAXA, just blow through 1m km. sq. in six days? (Previous record for blowing through the 14m~13m range was 14 days if I'm reading the Petitt bar graph right.)

JAXA extent was at 14 million km2 on Mar22, so no. Perhaps you meant 13.5M to 13M?

[johnm33]

"speeding up the whole darned thing" There's constant pressure on the Atl. side trying to force water in to the Arctic, if Nares, and the CAA generally, blocks the surface flow then the fractions below the surface have to force their way out which calls for far more energy. If Nares is flowing freely then the speed of surface waters towards Greenland increases and more flows through Fram too dragging the ice with it. Then more Atl. water flows in and the most energetic fraction moves towards Kara the nursery for thick ice.

[Jim Hunt]

Is it my imagination or did we, according to JAXA, just blow through 1m km. sq. in six days?

14 mio was on March 22nd, so it seems you have a vivid imagination?

[Thawing Thunder]

I've felt for years that the Nares acts like a bathtub stopper a little, creating room when it goes for more movement of the ice north of the CArch and Greenland, speeding up the whole darned thing, basically.

Little observation of a none native speaker: I found out that "nares" means "nostrils", I feel that is quite illustrative in this context.

[b_lumenkraft]

Little observation of a none native speaker: I found out that "nares" means "nostrils", I feel that is quite illustrative in this context.

That's some nice trivia. Thanks for sharing.

If you have a source, please, share with us in the Nares Strait thread.

[uniquorn]

I have fixed the September 2019 map for everyone. I think all the FYI beyond the red line is incredibly thin this year and will be prone to severe melt ponding and very early melt-out. Wave action will take care of the MYI tendrils that remain. I know some / everyone disagrees but I think we are already seeing melt ponding begin to percolate through most areas beyond the red line thanks to recent weather. <snippage>

Having enjoyed your posts since I first lurked on the forum I followed this up further using worldview. https://go.nasa.gov/2FXt5r2
That wasn't conclusive so I compared 2012-2019 (first image) edit:forgot 2019

Corrected Reflectance (Bands 3-6-7)
Temporal coverage: 24 February 2000 - Present
False Color: Red = Band 3, Green = Band 6, Blue = Band 7
This combination is used to map snow and ice. Snow and ice are very reflective in the visible part of the spectrum (Band 3), and very absorbent in Bands 6 and 7 (short-wave infrared, or SWIR). This band combination is good for distinguishing liquid water from frozen water, for example, clouds over snow, ice cloud versus water cloud; or floods from dense vegetation. This band combination is only available for MODIS (Terra) because 70% of the band 6 sensors on the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite failed shortly after launch.

2019 doesn't stand out from previous years so I tried sentinel playground http://tinyurl.com/y3qfrhh8
Bingo! Looks like melt. Close to the coast at least. Dial the rhetoric back a bit and we have agreement. Similarly with Okhotsk melt which was predicted up forum due to southerly freeze and is normally quite steep.

Currently trending closer to red than magenta.

[b_lumenkraft]

Crackification on the Atlantic side continues.

This is a GIF showing recent 3 days north of Nares.

A massive crack evolved reaching all the way to the north of Svalbard.

[gerontocrat]

April 2-7.

It seems movement into the Kara and and the Chukchi has stopped in the last 2-3 days
Maybe there is a chance of some recovery.

There is at the moment

[FishOutofWater]

Northerly winds over the next 5 days will give the ice in the Laptev and Kara seas an opportunity for recovery, but then another powerful surge of warm air will flood in from the Atlantic. The GFS and ECMWF models disagree on the details of the low pressure areas, but agree on the big picture - the intense ridge that develops over Scandinavia and the powerful southerly flow that pushes into the Nordic seas.

[lanevn]

Unless there is a legit Arctic dipole anomaly with a negative NOA after May 15th through June.

what's happening now just won't cut it if you're looking for records without that.


I don't know if we can say we are due.

But we are due.

And what's chances it will happen? I even heard that 2012 weather conditions is something like 1 vs 100, because previouse melting over 100% territory of Greenland happened more than 100 years ago. Were it really exceptional weather?

[uniquorn]

Crackification on the Atlantic side continues.<>

Nice animation.

amsr2-uhh, okhotsk, jan1-apr7. Another sea where freezing started away from the coast despite the cold offshore winds. Is that because the wind was too strong, not cold enough or coastal upwelling? Either way, there is very little fast ice to offer resistance to drift into warmer southern water and a lot of flash freeze/melt, similar to bering.

[Niall Dollard]

Northerly winds over the next 5 days will give the ice in the Laptev and Kara seas an opportunity for recovery, but then another powerful surge of warm air will flood in from the Atlantic. The GFS and ECMWF models disagree on the details of the low pressure areas, but agree on the big picture - the intense ridge that develops over Scandinavia and the powerful southerly flow that pushes into the Nordic seas.

The Scandinavian High throws up some warm southerlies to the east of Greenland and then out over the Norwegian Sea but latest model offerings are suggesting this heat wont reach the Kara Sea. So a bit of a respite - but it will hardly stay lucky for many weeks longer.   

[oren]

amsr2-uhh, okhotsk, jan1-apr7. Another sea where freezing started away from the coast despite the cold offshore winds. Is that because the wind was too strong, not cold enough or coastal upwelling? Either way, there is very little fast ice to offer resistance to drift into warmer southern water and a lot of flash freeze/melt, similar to bering.

I think this always happens in Okhotsk - freezing is driven by cold offshore winds, therefore no fast ice and real ice mostly generated away from shore.