The 2019 melting season

[Pagophilus]

My posting said the dates. June 15 for vol and thickness june 19 for area. Merely required the ability to read.

Whoops.  I will definitely work on that!

[Michael Hauber]

850hp air temps over last 7 days:



I had a look at 4 weekly periods (1st to 7th, 8th to 14th, 15th to 21st, 22nd to 28th) from each of 2007,2010,2011 and 2012, being years I remember having strong surface melt in June.  Hottest I could find was 2007:

[subgeometer]

The Kara sea always melts out, the ice there is doomed whatever the conditions. What really matters is the way its been attracting a dance of low pressure system cogs driving heat into the CAB, and ice out into the Barents/Atlantic

Edit: nowadays it always melts out, and I expect it to do so again  this year. Until Looking at the regional graphs Jim Hunt just posted I didn't realize it retained so much until as recently as the 2000s. And ice is still relatively thick there according to PIOMAS, much thicker than in the Beaufort sea, which is down to an average thickness of 0.5m. How long can ice that thick last? Not the rest of summer anyway

[JayW]

Last 2 days, NE Greenland coast has some fast ice breaking free.  Lots of neat swirls as well.

http://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=jpss&z=3&im=42&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=130&motion=loop&map=1&lat=1&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=1&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&sec=northern_hemisphere&p%5B0%5D=band_i01&x=17859.759765625&y=13706.57421875

[Rod]

Zack Labe posted some nice maps today showing the large SST anomalies on the Pacific side. 

There is a lot of water in the Chukchi that is already up to 8C (46.4F).

[Rod]

There were also some very warm temperatures today just a little bit north of bbr’s glacier. 

The Hudson and the south and east parts of the CAA are feeling a lot of heat right now. 

[subgeometer]

Last 2 days, NE Greenland coast has some fast ice breaking free.  Lots of neat swirls as well.

http://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=jpss&z=3&im=42&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=130&motion=loop&map=1&lat=1&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=1&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&sec=northern_hemisphere&p%5B0%5D=band_i01&x=17859.759765625&y=13706.57421875

That swirl of currents and melt is where the extra warm plume of Gulf Stream water (on the DMI SST chart)hits the sea ice. That persistent polynya against the coast near where the fast ice is cracking uphas been open for months again, and no ice can survive within it during summer, eg the jiggling blob of melting ice poking in on the north side appears to be going fast, like a blender is stirring it from beneath

Edit: One thing I've been wondering(and its a bit OT so I'm happy to be directed to another thread) is at what water temperature does sea ice begin to struggle to form  a freezing fresh boundary layer as it melts at the bottom? Ice in Boiling water, or water hot enough for active convection is surely not going to behave that way until substantially cooling the body of water. But what about water that's over 4C, where water is densest. Cooling 4C water to 2C makes it more buoyant, cooling 6C water to 4C has the opposite effect. Does this have any significant effect in diluting and mixing the boundary layer, and exposing the ice to more heat?

[Rod]

The ice that was dispersed (or, depending on your interpretation of the area and extent graphs, might have just spontaneously appeared) in the Beaufort, does not look very healthy today.

If that ice melts out fast, as some have predicted, the temporary upticks in area and extent will be wiped out, and this region of the ice will drop back down to historical lows. 

[Frivolousz21]

That's a lot of water between those large ice floes.

Looks like the water between most of the floes is at least a few kilometers.

If we see some sunny warm days or even just strong dirty WAA that ice is toast

[Csnavywx]

850hp air temps over last 7 days:



I had a look at 4 weekly periods (1st to 7th, 8th to 14th, 15th to 21st, 22nd to 28th) from each of 2007,2010,2011 and 2012, being years I remember having strong surface melt in June.  Hottest I could find was 2007:

Right, 2007 was extremely anomalous at the time, even more so than 2012. This is something that is often forgotten because 07 had a lot more starting volume/thickness, and as a result, its minimum was higher than 2012.

However, 2007 helped set up 2012, because after that year the Beaufort recirculation mechanism that was once a multi-year ice "nursery" of sorts had transitioned into a graveyard where it melted out. That has been the case ever since and it's one of the reasons 2012 was as bad as it was.

When we look back in a few decades, 2007 will likely be acknowledged for the turning point it really was.

[Rod]

And it begins...  As our “weather geeks” have been saying.  Things are looking bad!  The heat is happening on all sides of the arctic.  Now we hold our breath and see how bad it gets.

[Aluminium]

June 16-20.

2018.

Solstice.

[ArcticMelt2]

Last image from Barrow. The ice is melting fast.

[Lord M Vader]

D8 at EC 00z op. Godzilla high at 1043 hpa over the Arctic basin... This will be a complete assault to the ice. Just wonder how much longer the brown ice in Chukchi Sea will linger?

[BenB]

Edit: One thing I've been wondering(and its a bit OT so I'm happy to be directed to another thread) is at what water temperature does sea ice begin to struggle to form  a freezing fresh boundary layer as it melts at the bottom? Ice in Boiling water, or water hot enough for active convection is surely not going to behave that way until substantially cooling the body of water. But what about water that's over 4C, where water is densest. Cooling 4C water to 2C makes it more buoyant, cooling 6C water to 4C has the opposite effect. Does this have any significant effect in diluting and mixing the boundary layer, and exposing the ice to more heat?

I'm not sure how relevant the 4C is, because although the sea ice is fresher than the seawater, it is still salty, and salt water is densest at its freezing point, not at 4C. However, being fresher, the melting sea ice is less dense than the saltier seawater, so in the absence of dynamic processes, it will not sink, preventing mixing.

To what extent it will form a boundary layer is more a question of fluid dynamics, and depends on viscosity and other factors. I'm not qualified to comment on that.

[pleun]

D8 at EC 00z op. Godzilla high at 1043 hpa over the Arctic basin... This will be a complete assault to the ice. Just wonder how much longer the brown ice in Chukchi Sea will linger?

My understanding was that high pressure means clear skies so high insolation. But is 1040 hpa worse for ice than 1030 hpa, all else being equal ?

[Tony Mcleod]

D8 at EC 00z op. Godzilla high at 1043 hpa over the Arctic basin... This will be a complete assault to the ice. Just wonder how much longer the brown ice in Chukchi Sea will linger?

My understanding was that high pressure means clear skies so high insolation. But is 1040 hpa worse for ice than 1030 hpa, all else being equal ?

Yep, larger area and bluer skies.

[uniquorn]

But what about water that's over 4C, where water is densest. Cooling 4C water to 2C makes it more buoyant, cooling 6C water to 4C has the opposite effect. Does this have any significant effect in diluting and mixing the boundary layer, and exposing the ice to more heat?

It's likely that SST drops in the area close to melting floes even in very turbulent water. We might find out soon. whoi ITP110 is drifting ever closer to the ice edge in the beaufort, though SST is 'only' max 3 4C according to windy ecmwf. Yesterday's position here https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2417.msg207088.html#msg207088

itp110 temperature,salinity,density data to jun11 here https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2417.msg205032.html#msg205032

latest data https://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=163197

[Paul]

D8 at EC 00z op. Godzilla high at 1043 hpa over the Arctic basin... This will be a complete assault to the ice. Just wonder how much longer the brown ice in Chukchi Sea will linger?

My understanding was that high pressure means clear skies so high insolation. But is 1040 hpa worse for ice than 1030 hpa, all else being equal ?

I think it depends on other factors also like wind strength and where the high is. I actually think the models this morning have toned down a touch compared to what we have seen but the trend is still there that high pressure could become more dominant. In the shorter to medium term, high pressure is only really dominant across the ESS whereas elsewhere is under slacker type conditions as the low starts to quickly weaken in the CAB.

If this was the other way round and this high was over Beaufort then that would be bad for the ice as the winds would start pushing that warm water in the Chuckchi right towards the ice edge ans the winds would push the ice edge ever further northwards. As ever, time will tell and we will find out just how the ice will react to all thia.

[Phil.]

Last 2 days, NE Greenland coast has some fast ice breaking free.  Lots of neat swirls as well.

http://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=jpss&z=3&im=42&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=130&motion=loop&map=1&lat=1&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=1&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&sec=northern_hemisphere&p%5B0%5D=band_i01&x=17859.759765625&y=13706.57421875

That swirl of currents and melt is where the extra warm plume of Gulf Stream water (on the DMI SST chart)hits the sea ice. That persistent polynya against the coast near where the fast ice is cracking uphas been open for months again, and no ice can survive within it during summer, eg the jiggling blob of melting ice poking in on the north side appears to be going fast, like a blender is stirring it from beneath

Edit: One thing I've been wondering(and its a bit OT so I'm happy to be directed to another thread) is at what water temperature does sea ice begin to struggle to form  a freezing fresh boundary layer as it melts at the bottom? Ice in Boiling water, or water hot enough for active convection is surely not going to behave that way until substantially cooling the body of water. But what about water that's over 4C, where water is densest. Cooling 4C water to 2C makes it more buoyant, cooling 6C water to 4C has the opposite effect. Does this have any significant effect in diluting and mixing the boundary layer, and exposing the ice to more heat?

The 4º maximum density only applies to freshwater not seawater.  The density of the bottom melt will depend on the age of the ice as the younger the ice the more saline the melt and the higher the density.

[Michael Hauber]

My understanding was that high pressure means clear skies so high insolation. But is 1040 hpa worse for ice than 1030 hpa, all else being equal ?

Larger high pressure means either colder denser air (the strongest high pressures on earth are ultra cold air over Siberia), or a stronger upper ridge.  If its a stronger upper ridge it means stronger descent of air, and air heats up as it sinks.  This high has a strong upper ridge associated with it.

[pleun]

so a 1040 system would deliver more heat to the ice than a 1030 system. That makes sense I guess, thanks !

[uniquorn]

Following up on whoi itp110 buoy it's easy to see why extent and area might plateau or even rise. The large floe to the left of itp110 (circled) fractures into many smaller floes, covering a larger extent/area. That also happens to the smaller floes. It's not rocket salad. The danger is that it happens earlier and earlier in the melting season as the years go by.
edit: This isn't just happening in open water. There are multiple small recently refrozen fractures all the way across the CAB.

worldview terra modis, beaufort, itp110 local area jun1-21 https://go.nasa.gov/2WVh9fU
updated temp/sal/density charts for itp110 here https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2417.msg207423.html#msg207423

note:had to move the worldview date during the crop to reduce size

[Rich]

June 16-20.

2018.

Solstice.

Looks like it's going to pretty soon that sailing from Pacific to Atlantic w/o an ice breaker. Perhaps June.

Beginning to see the trend of Chuchki and Laptev Seas working toward each other. Based on Wipneus' concentration images, I'm anticipating them coming together and pinching off the ice between ESS and the pole.

The Beaufort has resumed it's typical rotation and the basin ice is moving back to the Canadian coast.

Chance of a record low extent this year? 20%?

The key will be the ESS.

[GoSouthYoungins]

Happy Peak Insolation Day 2019. May the highs be high, the lows be low, and the melting be ever in your favor!

[Pagophilus]

The much-heralded low pressure system, centered just S ('above') of the center of Novya Zemlya earlier today. 

I hope it doesn't hang around there, because it is perfectly positioned to scoop ice in an arc out of the Kara Sea and into the Barentz.  (Later edit: Nullschool has the low parked here for about 4 more days - ouch)  I believe the warm ridge can be discerned as a bank of cloud on the left of the image.

IceShieldz, the low is not nearly as cloudy as I expected it to be... I am already getting schooled by the Arctic.     

Worldview image, contrast tweaked on Photoshop to help differentiate ice from cloud.

[uniquorn]

Example of fractured CAB today on worldview aqua modis. Some clearish weather over mostly first year ice, probably 2-2.5m thick near the pole. Enhanced and default, click to run.
rotated anticlockwise 18deg. Enough pictures of ice, back up to 500hpa....

[Pagophilus]

June 16-20.

2018.

Solstice.

Thanks, Aluminium!   It is almost as if an invisible hand is pushing the ice away from Siberia and towards the Canadian/Alaskan coasts. 

Random thoughts based on observing your animation.
 
---You can practically see that CAB ice is being forced into the Beaufort, helping dispersion of Beaufort ice there.  So that may help settle one dispute.
 
--- The much-discussed CAA-CAB crack looks like it may be closing again.  (As it has in prior years)

--- The general motion of the ice pack seems to favor continued export from the Fram and Nares Straits.

--- Open water from the Atlantic to the Laptev does not look all that far away if this continues (yikes)

--- It could all be different again next week.

[Pragma]

The dangers of short term observation.

I think I just found a good example of "magic" ice that just appears out of nowhere.

Using the NSIDC Concentration maps, there is a thin line of ice along the north shore of Novaya Zemlya that wasn't there over the last three days, and the surrounding area was shown as clear.

With the present low there, it appears that some loose and low density ice was scavenged by wind from the ice south of FJL and deposited against NZ. (See Pagophilus' post 3 posts up.)

Simple enough, except the transit was never "seen", so the concentration was less than 15% or it was teleported.

[Frivolousz21]

Once again at Ostrov.

Nearly 11C DPs on a SSE wind at 20KTs.

That's crazy bad.

With all of the talk on next week. 

Let's not overlook a huge heatwave and ridge quickly building over the Pacific 1/2 of the Arctic.

[ArcticMelt2]

On the last satellite image in the Kolyma delta region, cracks appeared that for the first time pass through all fast ice (from the coast to the zone of drifting ice). Probably tomorrow at this place the ice will completely fall apart into separate ice floes.

[jdallen]

Once again at Ostrov.

Nearly 11C DPs on a SSE wind at 20KTs.

That's crazy bad.

With all of the talk on next week. 

Let's not overlook a huge heatwave and ridge quickly building over the Pacific 1/2 of the Arctic.

+1

Wow! 

[jdallen]

Following up on whoi itp110 buoy it's easy to see why extent and area might plateau or even rise. The large floe to the left of itp110 (circled) fractures into many smaller floes, covering a larger extent/area. That also happens to the smaller floes.
<snippage>

That's *exactly* why the numbers are plateauing.  You combine that with the grid precision (or lack thereof) of the models trying to sort out extent, and less ice starts taking up more sea surface.

It gets even more obvious when you look at the huge areas of extent that are turning into soup like this:

(Edit: Added a second image below showing the sort of ephemeral stuff that's propping up Barentz sea area and extent.)

[ArcticMelt2]

Once again at Ostrov.

Nearly 11C DPs on a SSE wind at 20KTs.

That's crazy bad.

With all of the talk on next week. 

Let's not overlook a huge heatwave and ridge quickly building over the Pacific 1/2 of the Arctic.

+1

Wow!

The current June on the island is disastrously warm. Already now a whole degree exceeds any value over the past 85 years (most likely the final temperature will be higher - the average temperature on the remaining days of June is close to 7 degrees).

This is very bad due to the huge amount of frozen greenhouse gases on the shallow shelf of the Laptev Sea.

[Tor Bejnar]

Could someone plop a grid (actually grids) on top of a satellite image (such as posted by jdallen just above) so we can see examples of what the different Extent-data-sources (JAXA, NSIDC) are dealing with.  For example, what does the 3.5 km (or whatever) grid look like over actual ice.

[Aluminium]

Observed dew point on Kotelny did not exceeded 9°C. But wind is really about 10 m/s.

[ArcticMelt2]

I had a look at 4 weekly periods (1st to 7th, 8th to 14th, 15th to 21st, 22nd to 28th) from each of 2007,2010,2011 and 2012, being years I remember having strong surface melt in June.  Hottest I could find was 2007:

Right, 2007 was extremely anomalous at the time, even more so than 2012. This is something that is often forgotten because 07 had a lot more starting volume/thickness, and as a result, its minimum was higher than 2012.

However, 2007 helped set up 2012, because after that year the Beaufort recirculation mechanism that was once a multi-year ice "nursery" of sorts had transitioned into a graveyard where it melted out. That has been the case ever since and it's one of the reasons 2012 was as bad as it was.

When we look back in a few decades, 2007 will likely be acknowledged for the turning point it really was.

The warmest June in the Arctic was June 2005. June 2007 in second place. 2012 in third place.



This June has a great chance to update the record.

And so really the warmest summer was in 2007, and not in 2012 (the warmest July and August).

[be cause]

I have been waiting some years to see what happens with a record warm May/June/July . It looks increasingly likely we will soon find out .
  The likelyhood of a record June are already very high . Will July be the ice's saviour again this year ? I very much doubt it . b.c.

 

[grixm]

Sorry if this has already been posted, but it seems the fast ice has started to break up around the Lena river delta in the past couple of days.

Also zooming in on the nearby ice there are just all these cracks developing all over it, some are almost running all the way from the images below to the sea north of it. I'm still a noob but to my eyes the whole area looks prime for collapse.

[oren]

grixm, you may be a noob but you are spot on.

[petm]

Let's not overlook a huge heatwave and ridge quickly building over the Pacific 1/2 of the Arctic.

Which I guess in the Beaufort means fully clear skies (now partly cloudy) at peak insolation over a vast area of open water, both on the landward side and in-between the now widely-dispersed floes.

Also, following the recent (anti-clockwise) cyclones that caused these large gaps, the ice is now beginning to regain momentum in its normal clockwise Beaufort gyre rotation. A lot of the ice that was recently transported / dispersed / pulverized by these cyclones (the cause of all the fuss about short-term extent and area value trends) will in the coming weeks be dragged through increasingly warm open water off Alaska.

Although none of these interesting events, should they come to pass, would likely (barring something drastic like a very early GAC) be reflected much by extent or area, the fundamental point is that they would result in increased rates of heat absorption (energy stored in the surface waters) and melt.

August could really be something.

https://go.nasa.gov/2X19LQc

[Aluminium]

Video from Pevek.

[oren]

Some temps around the Arctic. Siberia is super-crazy, while the CAA keeps cool.

Kotelny - New Siberian Islands
Tiksi - Laptev Shore
Pevek - ESS shore.
Resolute - middle of the CAA near the main channel.

[Rich]

So, yesterday I made a post about the possibility of open water from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

The comment was made with reference to a route around the Eurasian coast where the cracks are coming together.  It was meant to be a genuine observation, not a joke.

If someone doesn't agree with my post, feel free to post your disagreement here. In the melting thread.
We can have some fun with topic and guess which piece of coast will open up last.

It's really unfortunate to have someone use their privilege to ridicule others in another thread where you aren't even allowed to respond.

It's a weird way to roll.

[Rod]

I missed the comments you are referring to.  This time of year things start happening fast and people get nervous and stressed, and sometimes we are rude to each other.

I admit I have been rude myself on more than one occasion and I apologize.

I agree with you that the northern sea route is going to open soon. I’m not sure if this year will be a record early opening, but it seems like it might be close.  I don’t track those things.  Jim Hunt does and he will likely chime in on this one. 

[subgeometer]

Fires south of the Laptev Sea are growing, and the high will draw smoke north over the next couple of days.

I've attached a gif (click to animate)of june 19 and 21(20th obscured by cloud) showing the northernmost fires, quite small on the 19th, but now producing a huge pall of smoke or smog. And the Copernicus/WindyTV PM2.5 particle forecast for tomorrow, which I'll assume is a proxy for smoke in the far north

[JayW]

54 hour loop of the Laptev.  It's been pretty sunny there, a little burst of southerly winds today nudging the ice north.

[JayW]

Mouth of the Kolyma.  More cracks forming, more signs the immobile ESS ice will disintegrate shortly.

[binntho]

The landfast ice in ESS and Laptev is showing clear signs of breaking up - large cracks appearing practically overnight.

[Jim Hunt]

I don’t track those things.  Jim Hunt does and he will likely chime in on this one.

Which reminds me. I need to bring my series of NSR animations and the page they're emdedded in up to date!

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-regional-graphs/northern-sea-route/

In the meantime: