The 2019 melting season

[ReverendMilkbone]

May 15-19.

So, is that dark patch just up from the pole melt ponds? 

JayW claimed it was from rain in post 892

This is getting ugoolee.

[b_lumenkraft]

I asked myself the same question ReverendMilkbone.

[Rich]

That must be rain.

I zoomed in on some of the darker reference points (melt ponds ?) that existed before the "rain" passed over and could still discern their unique outline through the new shadow.

Process of elimination....what else could it be?

[Eco-Author]

It seems recent 'losses' in the barrent sea is as much due to the ice being 'pushed' north towards the pole as it is with melt.  Note the absence of ice on the north side of these islands which shows ice being pushed around to the north!  Also, global ice has remained noticeably below the line which should make for a slightly warmer planet overall/affect even the ice more in the north?  I've not seen any references to above average sea surface temps in a while and I'm not all that trusting of Nullschool on this matter... 

[Eco-Author]

With the recent heatwave in Scandinavia, not to mention the post up-thread of that Russian Island in the arctic with the glacier that's moving like 10X faster and can contribute to a FOOT of sea level rise, I have to wonder why only Greenland melt seems to be reported on which isn't nearly enough as it is...  Haven't we also witness glaciers in Norway that have drastically sped up???  Are their any pages you'd recommend to keep track of these?  Get a rain bomb like Harvey hitting a glacier and the ice hardly needs to melt to be washed out to sea and effect sea level practically overnight

[Eco-Author]

This is 250mb for today.  It seems new this year (?) to see this level of the jet acting more like we'd expect of the 500mb level... with so many cyclone like systems that seem to be acting like cogs in a wheel allowing the warmth just to jump on the fastest track north!  We also see for the first time the DMI being above the average line (for the most part) in late spring, vs. its more normal at or below average for this year.  Seems to me that because the states are a bit cooler and the arctic a bit warmer, the temp difference is what is allowing the jet to slow and allow this greater than average heat transfer north?!!

[be cause]

With the recent heatwave in Scandinavia, not to mention the post up-thread of that Russian Island in the arctic with the glacier that's moving like 10X faster and can contribute to a FOOT of sea level rise, I have to wonder why only Greenland melt seems to be reported on which isn't nearly enough as it is...  Haven't we also witness glaciers in Norway that have drastically sped up???  Are their any pages you'd recommend to keep track of these?  Get a rain bomb like Harvey hitting a glacier and the ice hardly needs to melt to be washed out to sea and effect sea level practically overnight

 What is needed is someone with the interest and skill set to bring the data here , Gerontocrat and co. can only do so much ! Perhaps you are the person to provide the information you feel is lacking ? .. b.c.

[Eco-Author]

With the recent heatwave in Scandinavia, not to mention the post up-thread of that Russian Island in the arctic with the glacier that's moving like 10X faster and can contribute to a FOOT of sea level rise, I have to wonder why only Greenland melt seems to be reported on which isn't nearly enough as it is...  Haven't we also witness glaciers in Norway that have drastically sped up???  Are their any pages you'd recommend to keep track of these?  Get a rain bomb like Harvey hitting a glacier and the ice hardly needs to melt to be washed out to sea and effect sea level practically overnight

What is needed is someone with the interest and skill set to bring the data here , Gerontocrat and co. can only do so much ! Perhaps you are the person to provide the information you feel is lacking ? .. b.c.

To me, all I'm saying is even if just one remote island we've never even heard of can and WILL contribute a FOOT to sea level rise seems to be something that should be a lot more on our radars!  I think I was being conservative with 10X faster glacier flow as the post up thread was ASTONISHING!  Extreme rosby waves will indeed bring heavy rains to these glaciers and flush them out to sea long before they've had time to melt   a foot alone would be intolerable! 

Um... I was wondering to myself about the melt of permafrost too... won't this also contribute to sea level rise??

[oren]

Not everything belongs on the 2019 melting season thread. Many of these subjects you raise are mentioned elsewhere in the forum.

[stjuuv]

To me, all I'm saying is even if just one remote island we've never even heard of can and WILL contribute a FOOT to sea level rise seems to be something that should be a lot more on our radars!

Where did you get the foot of sea level rise figure for the Vavilov glacier from? With a total ocean surface area of about 361 million square kilometers, a foot (0.3 meters) of sea level rise requires a total volume of about 100,000 cubic kilometers of glacier ice to melt. That figure would require the ENTIRE October Revolution Island to be covered by an average of 7 kilometers of ice or the Vavilov glacier to have 50+km of ice thickness, which is hardly the case.

A foot of sea level rise sounds more like total sea-level rise potential for ALL glaciers and ice caps outside the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland - see here: https://phys.org/news/2018-09-unprecedented-ice-loss-russian-cap.html

See more here: https://web.archive.org/web/20071216235037/http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/412.htm#tab113

Antarctic ice sheet - 25.71 million cubic kilometers (up to about 200 feet of sea level rise)
Greenland ice sheet - 2.85 million cubic kilometers (up to about 24 feet of sea level rise)
All other glaciers and ice caps combined - 0.22 million cubic kilometers (up to about 2 feet of sea level rise)

[be cause]

on cue the high pressure and descending warm air are providing clear skies today over much of the Arctic basin . Worldview is beginning to reveal the unfolding disintergration of the ice . Things look in a much worse state now than in mid June last year . The fracture zones running from Beaufort to the pole show the true state of the vast majority of the ice in the basin .. ready for dispersal and melt .
  The open water showing in these fractures may be what others are seeing as rain or melt pond effects . The warmth expected over the next week may see open water around the pole even before melt season proper has begun .
 I was hoping that GFS was running away with their heat forecast as they did over the last few years mid-May onward . This year though all the other forecasts are as bad . One evening last week in the hope of finding relief from the heat I looked 10 days out on ECMWF 850 anomalies .. only to find a red Arctic surrounded by a complete circle of blue . It looked like a heap of Strawberries on a delft plate ..
  Such has been the movement of ice this winter and spring that most ice over a year old has already left the Arctic and the forecasts ensure that movement will continue . It really does seem that Fram , Nare's and similar export is as important as any other aspect of the melt season .
 
  Looking back through Worldview I consider the state of ice in the basin to be worse today than on 20th June 2016 or 2012 .. b.c.
 
 
 

[Neven]

Vavilov glacier

Let's stay on topic, please.

[thejazzmarauder]

on cue the high pressure and descending warm air are providing clear skies today over much of the Arctic basin . Worldview is beginning to reveal the unfolding disintergration of the ice . Things look in a much worse state now than in mid June last year . The fracture zones running from Beaufort to the pole show the true state of the vast majority of the ice in the basin .. ready for dispersal and melt .
  The open water showing in these fractures may be what others are seeing as rain or melt pond effects . The warmth expected over the next week may see open water around the pole even before melt season proper has begun .
 I was hoping that GFS was running away with their heat forecast as they did over the last few years mid-May onward . This year though all the other forecasts are as bad . One evening last week in the hope of finding relief from the heat I looked 10 days out on ECMWF 850 anomalies .. only to find a red Arctic surrounded by a complete circle of blue . It looked like a heap of Strawberries on a delft plate ..
  Such has been the movement of ice this winter and spring that most ice over a year old has already left the Arctic and the forecasts ensure that movement will continue . It really does seem that Fram , Nare's and similar export is as important as any other aspect of the melt season .
 
  Looking back through Worldview I consider the state of ice in the basin to be worse today than on 20th June 2016 or 2012 .. b.c.

June 20th?

[uniquorn]

edit: arctic ocean today. Slight contrast adjustment to highlight fractures. https://go.nasa.gov/2JVe10v

[Pavel]

The Siberian side stays cold right now but the things should change soon. It looks like we will have the blue fast ice at the end of May and the 2017 snow pattern won't take place this year

[be cause]

another 350 sq km of the Arctic's finest ? ice into Nare's Straight today . providing more fracture room . It is obvious now that this really is @ the best ice in the basin that's disappearing daily . The rest of the best is dispersing in Beaufort or heading for Fram .
 The clear disintergration of the ice everywhere it has fractured from Beaufort to Kara has probably already removed the need for a GAC this year , as this ice already is and will increasingly be at the whim of the weather ...
 If circulation were to become cyclonic the open seas off Alaska and N. Canada would provide warm waters for the reception of fragmenting ice and aid dispersal Arctic wide .
The figures , especially extent , hide what is going on at the moment ( and may continue to do so for some time ) , as the ice is 'extending' by mass fracture .   b.c.

     p.s. .. and it's a 'yes' to thejazzmarauder ! 

 

[GoSouthYoungins]

The warmth expected over the next week may see open water around the pole even before melt season proper has begun .

From warm and melt? Near the pole? Next week? Is this what you are suggesting? It can't be. So you have to be saying that there will be huge separation between floes and that the open water will not refreeze, ya? Seems to me like there is no contrasting vectors of drift to cause this. Any open water will have little resistance and ice will drift in and fill any large gaps.

Maybe I'm missing something and there will be a shape and direction to the floes that will cause something like what you are suggesting, but please do elaborate.

Such has been the movement of ice this winter and spring that most ice over a year old has already left the Arctic and the forecasts ensure that movement will continue . It really does seem that Fram , Nare's and similar export is as important as any other aspect of the melt season .

The really good ice (5+ meters, 5+ years-old) melted out in the last 2 years. I think what we are seeing now (particularly in Nares) is what happens when the ice in the area is only a couple years old and a couple meters thick.

Looking back through Worldview I consider the state of ice in the basin to be worse today than on 20th June 2016 or 2012 .. b.c.

This year is the worst for this date with 2016 being the only other year close. Luckily June and July weather matter most...but the set up is really terrible and may not even require abnormal weather for a record. However, I would guess that if weather is mundane, 2019 minimum will be between 2012 and 2016.

[Neven]

Back to the Beaufort. I would say that there's hardly a difference with 2016. Maybe there's a bit more snow on the coast now, but then again, Amundsen Bay is already completely free of ice. In the comparison below, I've added June 12th 2016, ie three weeks from today:

[slow wing]

Apologies for commenting on the above off-topic discussion, Neven, but imho important to clear up the false information on this thread that melt-out of the Vavilov ice cap would allegedly add 1 foot to sea level = 305 mm.

The volume of the Vavilov ice cap is 570 km^3
Ref. Massive destabilization of an Arctic ice cap, Michael J. Willis et al, Earth and Planetary Science Letters Volume 502, 15 November 2018, Pages 146-155
[This appears to be the study causing all the alarm.]


Total area of the Earth's Oceans is 360 million km^2
The density of ice is ~0.92 of the density of water.

So sea level rise if the Vavilov ice cap melted out entirely = 0.92 x 5.7e2 km^3 / 3.6e8 km^2
= 1.5e-6 km
= 1.5 mm.

So the sea level rise would be 1.5 mm.

[Neven]

Apologies for commenting on the above off-topic discussion, Neven

No problem, I'll just post something on-topic again. 

Finally - finally! - the ECMWF 6-day forecast is looking much better for the sea ice. We'll have 2-3 more days of winds pulling away the ice from the coasts in the Beaufort and Chukchi, but then lower pressure takes over. Maybe the action will then shift to the Siberian side, but that's not entirely clear as of yet (to my eyes at least):

[be cause]

In reply to GSY , I expect the fractures to remain open .. it looks like open water yesterday @ 89'N 130E .maybe only 2 km X 200m .. the largest bead on the string .. but if it is open water it is only a few miles from the pole and temps look like preventing significant refreeze in the coming days . I am not forecasting an ice free pole .. 'just' open water in the area .
Really it is the level of pre-conditioning in advance of melt season proper that has my concern . b.c.

ps.  thankfully the more extreme forecasts are fading ..

[Neven]

At the same time, lots of heat coming in, 2.8 °C above average by next week, which equates to 0 °C for much of the Arctic:

[subgeometer]

The currebt ECWMF forecast on windy TV also shows insane warmth through the forecast, for example large areas above 0 at 950mb all thru at 950mb every day, and the surface temp near or above 0 by end of forecast

[Rich]

The currebt ECWMF forecast on windy TV also shows insane warmth through the forecast, for example large areas above 0 at 950mb all thru at 950mb every day, and the surface temp near or above 0 by end of forecast

Can you translate "insane warmth" into a scientific term? Perhaps using old fashioned techniques like numbers and comparison with hisrorical norms?

[Jim Hunt]

it looks like open water yesterday @ 89'N 130E .maybe only 2 km X 200m

MODIS doesn't often give a clear view of the pole, but it did yesterday:

https://go.nasa.gov/2EmOpGm

With luck we'll get another glimpse in a few days?

[RikW]

I was just checking beaufort sea on NASA Worldview, based on the may 20th images I'd say it's in really bad condition. Checking the 20th of May in the last 10 years, 2016 was the worst and 2019 isn't much better.

Worldview link: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,Graticule,Coastlines&t=2019-05-20-T00%3A00%3A00Z&z=3&v=-2786514.8516380293,-1030998.8688008119,1145645.1483619707,1035433.1311991881&ab=off&as=2017-04-15&ae=2017-05-07&av=3&al=true

[Trebuchet]

At the same time, lots of heat coming in, 2.8 °C above average by next week, which equates to 0 °C for much of the Arctic:

 Warm low pressure intrusions are not necessarily a bad thing as they bring clouds. This time of year cold and sunny is far worse than warm and cloudy. We dodged a bullet in 2016 due to this and I'm hoping for a repeat.

[oren]

Back to the Beaufort. I would say that there's hardly a difference with 2016. Maybe there's a bit more snow on the coast now, but then again, Amundsen Bay is already completely free of ice. In the comparison below, I've added June 12th 2016, ie three weeks from today:

The Beaufort looks really bad. But Wipneus' UH area chart still shows there is a bit more ice than in 2016, although the gap has shrunk considerably.

[bbr2314]

Back to the Beaufort. I would say that there's hardly a difference with 2016. Maybe there's a bit more snow on the coast now, but then again, Amundsen Bay is already completely free of ice. In the comparison below, I've added June 12th 2016, ie three weeks from today:

The Beaufort looks really bad. But Wipneus' UH area chart still shows there is a bit more ice than in 2016, although the gap has shrunk considerably.

It's interesting comparing the PAC front with previous years, as recent "bad years", despite Bering problems, saw a major stall in momentum in May and June. This year, it appears the front is marching forth with almost nothing getting in its way...

[Jim Hunt]

The Beaufort looks really bad. But Wipneus' UH area chart still shows there is a bit more ice than in 2016, although the gap has shrunk considerably.

Taking the Pacific side as a whole 2019 currently leads the pack. Compare and contrast with the Atlantic side:

[GoSouthYoungins]

Taking the Pacific side as a whole 2019 currently leads the pack. Compare and contrast with the Atlantic side:

Which is exactly what one would expect once the arctic lost all of its older ice and thus its rigidity. The ice is more free than ever to drift into the atlantic. I think this will get more severe in the coming years until there isn't enough ice left to make its southern journey.

[Tor Bejnar]

Part of what makes the Beaufort Sea look so bad ("matching" 2016) is the 'missing' ice in Amundsen Gulf (part of the Canadian [Arctic] Archipelago), as Neven pointed out.  An enlargement of the Wipneus chart (below) suggests about 20,000 km2 less CAA ice this year than in 2016 in mid-May (about the reverse of the current Beaufort difference).

[Killian]

Taking the Pacific side as a whole 2019 currently leads the pack. Compare and contrast with the Atlantic side:

Is it compare and contrast or is it cause and effect? Seems to me the winds are mostly sending ice toward Fram, Svalbard, et al. In the last 7 years it has seemed pretty common for the sea ice to stay north of the archipelago and we had low export out the Fram Strait, particularly in summer. Hasn't it been true of the big melt years, '07, '10, '12 that the winds pushed a lot of ice out the Fram with the dipole, etc.?

All that action on the Pacific side is the cause of the ice pushing against Svalbard and out the Fram. Since 2012, things mostly calmed down to very good ice retention conditions overall during summers. May be the same here, but if not, and the ice flow out the Fram continues the whole season, 2019 and 2012 may end up playing patty fingers, much to the priest's and mother's dismay.

Yes, I'm ready for the historical error corrections given it's likely I made some.

 

Cheers

[gerontocrat]

Back to the Beaufort. I would say that there's hardly a difference with 2016. Maybe there's a bit more snow on the coast now, but then again, Amundsen Bay is already completely free of ice. In the comparison below, I've added June 12th 2016, ie three weeks from today:

The Beaufort looks really bad. But Wipneus' UH area chart still shows there is a bit more ice than in 2016, although the gap has shrunk considerably.

NSIDC area sea ice graph looking a bit different.
2018 much lower than 2018, but still about 100 km2 more than 2016

[echoughton]

The warmth expected over the next week may see open water around the pole even before melt season proper has begun .

From warm and melt? Near the pole? Next week? Is this what you are suggesting? It can't be. So you have to be saying that there will be huge separation between floes and that the open water will not refreeze, ya? Seems to me like there is no contrasting vectors of drift to cause this. Any open water will have little resistance and ice will drift in and fill any large gaps.

Maybe I'm missing something and there will be a shape and direction to the floes that will cause something like what you are suggesting, but please do elaborate.

Such has been the movement of ice this winter and spring that most ice over a year old has already left the Arctic and the forecasts ensure that movement will continue . It really does seem that Fram , Nare's and similar export is as important as any other aspect of the melt season .

The really good ice (5+ meters, 5+ years-old) melted out in the last 2 years. I think what we are seeing now (particularly in Nares) is what happens when the ice in the area is only a couple years old and a couple meters thick.

Looking back through Worldview I consider the state of ice in the basin to be worse today than on 20th June 2016 or 2012 .. b.c.

This year is the worst for this date with 2016 being the only other year close. Luckily June and July weather matter most...but the set up is really terrible and may not even require abnormal weather for a record. However, I would guess that if weather is mundane, 2019 minimum will be between 2012 and 2016.

How does "the really good ice" melt out in the past two years, when we ended the last two years with close to 4 million square K of ice left from the previous year(s)

[Sterks]

At the same time, lots of heat coming in, 2.8 °C above average by next week, which equates to 0 °C for much of the Arctic:

The way I see it it is going to be nuclear until Saturday, then things get more normal.
I would be surprised if the ice stays this white in Beaufort and CAA. Should be blueish esp in the channels and near the coast, or there's a lot of snow-on-ice to melt in these regions

[Tor Bejnar]

How does "the really good ice" melt out in the past two years, when we ended the last two years with close to 4 million square K of ice left from the previous year(s)[?]

Much by simple export to the melting fields.  Otherwise, when 'good ice' gets fractured to smithereens, then almost anywhere (except for the central-and-towards-the-CCA part of the Arctic Basin [so far]) can become a melting field.  (Of course, melting occurs 'everywhere', just not necessarily enough to melt 'really good ice'.)

[be cause]

Hi Echoughton ..
most has left the basin on the Fram express ably abetted by the Nares strait ..
 
If you look on the Nares thread , Uniquorn posted April 30th (post 1629) .. an ascat gif of the season till then . You can watch as the older ice consolidates and moves . I can only guestimate area that heads out of the basin but it is a lot . That loss has continued for the last 3 weeks .
 
I hope Uniquorn will consider updating us on this thread as it is the best visual demonstration of what is actually happening I have seen . If he does it will probably become the most downloaded post on the site .. b.c.

[magnamentis]

2018 much lower than 2018, but still about 100 km2 more than 2016

not that it matters for most of us but there apparently is a typo in the year, twice 2018 ?

sorry if i'm the one who doesn't see things right

[Jim Hunt]

How does "the really good ice" melt out in the past two years, when we ended the last two years with close to 4 million square K of ice left from the previous year(s)

Here's a slightly out of date NASA video that illustrates the process:



It's taken a lot more than two years! However here too is an up to date graph from the NSIDC that reveals virtually no remaining 5+ year old ice:

[Jim Hunt]

Seems to me the winds are mostly sending ice toward Fram, Svalbard, et al.

Seems that way to me also. See uniquorn's recent ASCAT video for some evidence of that.

[uniquorn]

Following on from yesterdays relatively cloud free image of the arctic ocean (or estuary) here is a comparison of yesterday's ascat with the same image.(may20)
As the temperatures warm up and ice surface melts and refreezes ascat will struggle to differentiate ice provenance as can already be seen in the chukchi and north of NSI in this image. Weather interference also becomes more dominant.

[uniquorn]

The short term forecast for the Mackenzie watershed is crazy.<snippage>

It's bad today, but still a few days behind 2016. Not so many large floes in the Beaufort though.
Worldview terra modis, mackenzie may15-21.
2016 here: https://go.nasa.gov/2Er9zDk

[oren]

The snow on the ground around the delta took a severe beating during these 6 days.

[uniquorn]

agreed oren. In a few days time it could be much worse than 2016.

[magnamentis]

looking at neven's images upthread once can see that on first glance 2016 looks worse but in fact once putting into account the condition of the adjacent ice area that is many times larger than the blue ocean part there is about only half of the ice now in total in that part compared to 2016, hence the difference in numbers is not that easy to measure but very close to being on par between the two years.

IMO that means somehow that there is more ice in contact with water than in 2016. one could say that the edge-line of the ice is way longer (analog to the term coast-line for land that is bordering to water)

resume:

- beaufort is similarly bad

- pacific side is worse

- atlantic side will melt out anyway, hence even though it's in better shape than other years,
the overall situation is not boding well.

[GoSouthYoungins]

How does "the really good ice" melt out in the past two years, when we ended the last two years with close to 4 million square K of ice left from the previous year(s)

It is quite simple: The good stuff went thru fram, nares, the caa "garlic press", or into the beaufort gyre and it melted.

It's taken a lot more than two years! However here too is an up to date graph

Yes it has taken more than 2 years, but up until 2 years ago there were regions that had continuous old thick ice. The last two summers saw that come to an end and now there really is none left except, in theory, some bits and pieces scattered about.

What is significant about this development is that the region of good ice had been acting as a plug and an anchor. Nares stayed moderately plugged up and the ice north of the caa and greenland stayed anchored to the coasts. Now a storm could easily blow the ice north any time from june to september.

Thanks for the graph. The 4+ ice is now asymptotically/effectively zero.

[GoSouthYoungins]

It will be much much worse in a few days. Today the heat arrived and it was 14C ( vs 4C yesterday). Tomorrow is forecast to be 18C, the next day 20C, the next day 21C. The GIFs will be awesome 

Keep in mind that this is not a warm and cloudy intrusion. It is very sunny and should remain so until the 25th when things get back to reasonable temps.

[Killian]

- pacific side is worse

- atlantic side will melt out anyway, hence even though it's in better shape than other years,
the overall situation is not boding well.

I made this point with Jim Hunt, but it's worth repeating, it seems, because I'm not sure if it's not being recognized that all that ice along Svalbard, et al., and in the East Greenland Sea is not a case of the ice there "being in better shape," it is the direct result of the eastward flow of the ice pack from the Pacific side to the Atlantic due to currents and eastward winds/occasional dipoles.

That is, years ago it was normal for the ice to be stacked up against Svalbard, but that has mostly changed as the ice pack has thinned and lost area and extent, particularly since 2012.

You all do a great job of tracking all this stuff, so much so I rarely comment anymore because you've blown past my knowledge level. However, this is an important dynamic that I think a little more clarity in language will help make clear for those less versed or for newbies so they understand the ice dynamics. That ice is there because we currently (this spring) are experiencing nearly perfect conditions for ice loss. We have:

* early loss on the Pacific side, creating space.
* overall long-term weakness (loss of old, thick ice) making the pack more mobile
* overall lower extent, area and volume, all making the pack more mobile
* high temps generally

**** generally eastward winds pushing the ice toward Fram.****

Again, the ice conditions around Svalbard are not better, they're a really bad sign; they indicate high ice loss via Fram, etc., and are the direct result of movement elsewhere, not growth or recovery of ice - which is what a word like "better" would mean to me.

Not meaning to be overly pedantic, just think it's a distinction worth making.

[A-Team]

be cause: can only guestimate area that heads out of the basin but it is a lot

Right. Wind-driven ice motion has been extraordinary this freeze/melt season. By translocating thicker, older ice into zones that will melt out later in the summer, or exporting ice altogether out of the basin via the Fram, Nares and Svalbard-FJL chain plus blocking Kara Sea ice on the import side, wind-driven ice motion may challenge conventional bottom and top melt this year as the leading ice volume loss mechanism.

The first image below shows  on mid-basin Atlantic-side feature drift (boundary between old and new ice) over the the last 195 days using twenty-day contours.

A similar area of ice ahead of the front has been (or will be if wind patterns keeps up) irreversibly displaced out of the basin. This area can be measured, not adjusting for compression or extension, by lifting geo-referenced Ascat images onto Google Earth Pro for its ellipsoidal (WGS84) area and length calculations (2nd image shows the 7.109 million sq km polygon of relevant Arctic Ocean.

Wx predictions are the proverbial drunk looking for her car keys under the street lamp because the light is better there -- winds thousands of meters above the ice are easier to predict than the 0m winds, yet only the latter actually move the ice pack (by coupling to pressure ridges and floe edges rather than flat pan).

You can see this on any given day by comparing ice motion vectors observed by OSISAF/NSIDC to winds GFS or ECMWF are showing, before or after reanalysis (3rd image). Surface currents are negligible (or as oceanographer R Woodward notes, induced by ice keels) outside the intake funnels of the Nares and Fram and inconsistent Bering Strait flows to/from the Chukchi. Note the ice pack has a certain amount of mechanical rigidity, leading to cohesive motion despite a heterogeneous stress field.

The Arctic Ocean is seriously 'under-instrumented', meaning models have never had sufficient calibration or feedback guidance. On the rare instances an instrumented ship has been out there in May (eg N-ICE spring 2015), measurements departed markedly even from nearby land stations like Ny-Ålesund. However nobody ever fixed a weather model or reanalysis based on a basin instrument account.

Help is in sight (with a 2-3 year delay?): this Sept, AWI's Polarstern will drift for a full year on a thick Siberian-side floe (lol !) to collect "direct in-situ observations of the climate processes that couple the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, bio-geochemistry and ecosystem ... to enhance understanding of the regional and global consequences of Arctic climate change and sea-ice loss and improve weather and climate predictions. https://www.mosaic-expedition.org

This won't be meagre point weather and ice properties because they are going out to a 50 km swath radius on both sides of the drift track. The 4th image shows a hypothetic drift trajectory. They'd have been home early this year whereas in 2017/18 the ship would hardly have moved in the hoped-for direction:

233 days of anti-transpolar drift 2017-2018.mp4
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2278.msg155398.html#msg155398

The Oden made a remarkable observation of open water at the north pole on 25 Aug 18, photographing a walrus there, messing with a research sled. Ask yourself how much open water there had to be regionally for a walrus to swim to the NP on that date and when it last ate: the water is 4,087 m deep whereas the deepest walrus dive ever recorded is 500m.

This and a few little things like ice thickness went seriously under-reported (except by Jim Hunt and twitter). This has really got to change -- scientists chewing on their cud for years (buffing their journal articles) while leaving everyone else in the dark.

I had an identical experience trying to get even the most mundane CTD casts from the Polarstern when by great good fortune they were able to reach the Weddell Sea during that unprecedented reversal of the Fram in Feb 18 attributed to a sudden stratospheric warming. A cr*ppy article by another research group ensued who also couldn't get the data. Where is the public benefit in  hoarding?