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bbr2314

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2600 on: June 27, 2019, 03:02:58 AM »
Wow

My guesses for 9/1 and 9/20

You can see how all the FYI is about to blink out in everything peripheral to the CAB. The rogue chunks of second year ice in between stand no chance at survival once that occurs.

The areas that appear to be ready to disappear very quickly expanded dramatically yday. A comparison with 2012 shows similarly-shaded bits of ice that year were prone to melt and dispersal within the following 30-45 days.

We must consider that 2012's GAC may have also been the RESULT of so much ice melting at once. The melting of ice gives off tremendous energy. Maybe it would have happened anyways but maybe it occurred precisely because the year was so bad. We have seen GAC-y events in years since as well, earlier and earlier in the summer.

So, we shall see what 2019 holds, but if momentum is any indicator I see no reason why we don't follow in 2012's footsteps with a GAC event, but this year it will probably be earlier in the season due to the greater insolation already absorbed across much of the Arctic Basin.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2601 on: June 27, 2019, 03:11:56 AM »
Day by day the fires continue to spread. As they do every year. But this year the spread seems accelerated.

The plumes aren't arriving in the CAB daily, but the current melt event does appear to be accompanied by the smoke (makes sense considering these stifling airmasses are traversing Siberia before arriving in the Arctic). As the fires multiply further into July and August one can imagine the situation worsening substantially before improving.

Rod

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2602 on: June 27, 2019, 03:23:09 AM »
I like to follow the fires too because they provide information about ground conditions that are not always apparent from the weather models. 

According to Rick Thoman, so far about 200k acres have burned in Alaska which he calls significant but not extreme. 

The fire in the image below on the Russia side strikes me as unusual because it is so close to the coast this early in the year.  That says a lot about the heat on the Russian side right now.

Thomas Barlow

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2603 on: June 27, 2019, 03:41:52 AM »
Arctic Ocean lowest for this time of year.
Graph by Wipneus.
http://tinyurl.com/y2m5m4nb

Greenbelt

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2604 on: June 27, 2019, 04:16:09 AM »
Top part of this picture (near Beaufort/Chukchi boundary) is dominated by much smaller floes that are too small to see individually at this resolution.  Bottom half is much larger floes with many individually discernable.  The rough boundary is also marked by much more discoloured ice - I believe that is algae?  Or is it dust and/or smoke? 
I had always assumed the gray ice at the edges had lost most of its structural rigidity and was mostly floating very low to the waterline and much infused with sea water, rather than algae. Would love to know the answer from experts.

Rod

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2605 on: June 27, 2019, 04:38:07 AM »
I’m not an expert, and I try to ignore Michael Hauber’s posts, but since his question, which seems legitimate, has generated some discussion I will throw out the possibility that the ice has some frozen sediment in it. 

If you look at the ice in Foxe Basin and along the Chukchi coast line you will see that happens a lot.  When the waves kick up during the summer they eat away at the coastline and cause a lot of sediment to be released.  That sediment often freezes in the ice. 

The ice in his image is offshore, but we don’t know where it started from.  It could have been swept into the Beaufort gyre from nearshore. 

That is just a guess but the coloration is very similar to what we usually see from ice that has sediment frozen within it. 

A-Team is the guy who can answer this question.  He might smack me down and say I’m totally wrong. 😝.  I would suggest posting it in the “test” section because that is the section A-Team is monitoring this year.  I agree that this is an important and legitimate question. 

« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 05:00:15 AM by Rod »

Pagophilus

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2606 on: June 27, 2019, 05:08:51 AM »
Wow

My guesses for 9/1 and 9/20

You can see how all the FYI is about to blink out in everything peripheral to the CAB. The rogue chunks of second year ice in between stand no chance at survival once that occurs.

The areas that appear to be ready to disappear very quickly expanded dramatically yday. A comparison with 2012 shows similarly-shaded bits of ice that year were prone to melt and dispersal within the following 30-45 days.

We must consider that 2012's GAC may have also been the RESULT of so much ice melting at once. The melting of ice gives off tremendous energy. Maybe it would have happened anyways but maybe it occurred precisely because the year was so bad. We have seen GAC-y events in years since as well, earlier and earlier in the summer.

So, we shall see what 2019 holds, but if momentum is any indicator I see no reason why we don't follow in 2012's footsteps with a GAC event, but this year it will probably be earlier in the season due to the greater insolation already absorbed across much of the Arctic Basin.

I am puzzled by these statements.  The melting of ice is an endothermic process. 
You may delay, but time will not.   Benjamin Franklin.

FishOutofWater

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2607 on: June 27, 2019, 05:18:05 AM »
The GAC welled up heat stored in layers below the Arctic ocean's surface to melt large quantities of ice. Of course, it takes heat to melt ice. Yes, melting ice is a highly endothermic process. The comment you referred to was incorrect and should be disregarded.

epiphyte

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2608 on: June 27, 2019, 05:30:39 AM »
I’m not an expert

Nor I - but I do know that ice which looks like that is always FYI, has usually been snow-covered at some point, is thin, and has always recently been subjected to melting conditions.

Speculation - but perhaps the snow was dirty, and melting/draining it has concentrated the surface dirt. (just look at any roadside or parking lot in Minnesota in late February, and you'll see what I mean :( )

...and, last, but not least, it will imminently disintegrate.

Rod

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2609 on: June 27, 2019, 05:36:38 AM »
That is what our common sense would tell us, but year after year that “dirty ice” takes a really long time to melt.  Again, look at the ice in Foxe Basin and along the Chukchi coast over the past several years. 

I’m always amazed at the resilience of the “dirty ice.” 

petm

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2610 on: June 27, 2019, 06:15:58 AM »
Daft thing is I saw burnrate's gifs before Neven took them down . I like that form of gif because it allows me to decide if I play it or not .
 It does not appear to part self-load as grixm's webx does , as facepuke does .. every unwatched video you pass part loads every time you pass it .

Then Uniqcorn uses autoplaying versions that use more of my bits than if he loaded better versions that we could click on .. as he does with much of his output in the Test area .. although there are enough self playing gifs on a page there too to gobble up data every whither I want to look again or not .
 
The sterks option .. again play whither wanted or not .. should that be an option ? I had just come from looking at the same forecast .. :) . To me it seems the options are there .. that allow the viewer the choice of play or not and load or not .

The choice of quality should be with the producer .. I don't mind the size of a gif .. I do mind not having control of it .. b.c.

Good points. I too would much rather have high quality, optionally-loaded (on click) gifs etc. Is that actually how it works for the bandwidth-otherly-enabled (or whatever we should call it now)? Or is there also a storage issue or something?

petm

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2611 on: June 27, 2019, 06:20:00 AM »

Thanks for trying so hard, but I can't even load these in Safari. Normally I have to download videos in this browser and play locally, but these don't seem to have links. Why doesn't the forum software handle this for us? lol. Should be automatic low bandwidth versions etc. Anyways...   :-X

Edit: I can see the URLs somehow in the underlying message when I quote it... Computers -- argh!! You'd think we'd have this sorted by now.

petm

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2612 on: June 27, 2019, 06:28:24 AM »
We must consider that 2012's GAC may have also been the RESULT of so much ice melting at once.

Yes, simultaneously a result and a cause. Namely, a (weather- / global circulation-dependent) feedback.

petm

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2613 on: June 27, 2019, 06:35:31 AM »
Arctic Ocean lowest for this time of year.

Drawing a horizontal line, at least a couple weeks ahead of 2012 in terms of absolute value (but far less ahead in terms of slope).

P.S. Sorry for all the posts.

petm

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2614 on: June 27, 2019, 06:38:00 AM »
I’m not an expert, and I try to ignore Michael Hauber’s posts, but since his question, which seems legitimate, has generated some discussion I will throw out the possibility that the ice has some frozen sediment in it. 

Agreed on all points. Or maybe soot from previous years' fires?

binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2615 on: June 27, 2019, 07:09:41 AM »
The discoloration of ice in early summer in the Chukchi is an annual thing, I've posted about it previously and nobody seems to have an explanation. Sometimes the discoloration is striated, i.e. there are bands of different colors following the edge of the ice.

If one is familiar with ice, the first thing that comes to mind is that some sort of sediment has been deposited at different times on the surface of the ice, interspersed with snow, hence the striation and different colors.

Also another possibility is some sort of sediment that is evenly distributed throughout the ice, and areas that have seen greater surface melt show greater accumulation of sediment, explaining different colours but not the clear striation.

I've alwas assumed that these were airborn sediments, i.e. ash from wildfires, or more likely, dust from duststorms from the dry Siberian landmass, interspersed with snow.

Rod suggest that this might be sediment from rivers that is caught in the ice during refreeze which to me sounds interesting - but not very likely considering the movements of the ice, where most of the Chukchi ice originates above the CAA.

Image from June 5, 2016. Wrangel Island to the right.
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ReverendMilkbone

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2616 on: June 27, 2019, 07:11:29 AM »
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but check out this graph about drought conditions in California, bad droughts kicked off in 2007 and 2012 that each lasted several years.  Is there any direct correlation between low summer minimum sea ice and CA drought?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Drought_area_in_California.svg/1200px-Drought_area_in_California.svg.png

binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2617 on: June 27, 2019, 07:12:14 AM »
I find it extremely unlikely that heat from vegetation fires in Siberia can have any measurable effect on melting in the Arctic. If anybody wants to make such claims, year after year, perhaps they could get the calorific calculations done first?
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
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Rod

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2618 on: June 27, 2019, 07:32:17 AM »

Rod suggest that this might be sediment from rivers that is caught in the ice during refreeze which to me sounds interesting - but not very likely considering the movements of the ice, where most of the Chukchi ice originates above the CAA.

I did not say sediment from rivers.  I said sediment from coastal erosion.  I also said I was guessing and that I might be wrong.

It still seems to fit what I have observed, but if you feel strongly that the discoloration we see in some of the ice is not sediment, then I respect your opinion.

I think it is an interesting and important question.  I don’t know the answer. I would like to hear what A-Team has to say. 

wdmn

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2619 on: June 27, 2019, 07:37:11 AM »
The discoloration of ice in early summer in the Chukchi is an annual thing, I've posted about it previously and nobody seems to have an explanation. Sometimes the discoloration is striated, i.e. there are bands of different colors following the edge of the ice.

If one is familiar with ice, the first thing that comes to mind is that some sort of sediment has been deposited at different times on the surface of the ice, interspersed with snow, hence the striation and different colors.

Also another possibility is some sort of sediment that is evenly distributed throughout the ice, and areas that have seen greater surface melt show greater accumulation of sediment, explaining different colours but not the clear striation.

I've alwas assumed that these were airborn sediments, i.e. ash from wildfires, or more likely, dust from duststorms from the dry Siberian landmass, interspersed with snow.

Rod suggest that this might be sediment from rivers that is caught in the ice during refreeze which to me sounds interesting - but not very likely considering the movements of the ice, where most of the Chukchi ice originates above the CAA.

Image from June 5, 2016. Wrangel Island to the right.

The stretch of coast south of Wrangel (from about 60km west of Billings to Ryrkaypiy) appears to be mostly sand beaches on google earth.

Where I am on the Great Lakes, the ice that forms close to shore on sand beaches gets sand deposited in it. And this often happens in layers as ice forms, then waves come in and crash overtop of the formed ice depositing more sand on top of it. Sometimes the fast ice effectively extends the beach, so that the area where waves crash shifts farther out over successive days/weeks during the freezing season. I've not examined much of that ice, but I would assume it gets the same sand deposits that occur closer to shore.

During melt season, if the ice has built up thick close to shore, it is not unusual to be walking across what you think is beach, until you realize that there's much more ice underneath it. I.e. you're walking on ice covered with sand.

...

Killian

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2620 on: June 27, 2019, 08:01:26 AM »
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but check out this graph about drought conditions in California, bad droughts kicked off in 2007 and 2012 that each lasted several years.  Is there any direct correlation between low summer minimum sea ice and CA drought?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Drought_area_in_California.svg/1200px-Drought_area_in_California.svg.png

The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge (RRR) is the culprit. The connection to the Arctic is either tenuous or has not been explored, it seems. I didn't read the entire thing, so...

However, I posited in 2015 that EN's have an effect on ASI extent (the scientists say there is none; I disagree at present), using that to predict, in August 2015, a new low or near low in 2016-17 (2016 came in a slight 2nd over 2007.) 2012 was an EN year, also, iirc. Recent research has found a correlation with Pacific heat and moisture and ASI melt.

Given all this, it is worth noting the RRR shifts the storm track, ergo the Jet Stream, northward.

Teleconnections definitely possible.

binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2621 on: June 27, 2019, 08:05:21 AM »

Rod suggest that this might be sediment from rivers that is caught in the ice during refreeze which to me sounds interesting - but not very likely considering the movements of the ice, where most of the Chukchi ice originates above the CAA.

I did not say sediment from rivers.  I said sediment from coastal erosion.  I also said I was guessing and that I might be wrong.

It still seems to fit what I have observed, but if you feel strongly that the discoloration we see in some of the ice is not sediment, then I respect your opinion.

I think it is an interesting and important question.  I don’t know the answer. I would like to hear what A-Team has to say.

Sorry, was a bit too quick - once you mentioned coastal erosion I started thinking rivers ... but I think that eventually this question can only be answered by taking direct measurements. The discolorations are there every year, so one day I'm sure somebody will think of taking a few ice samples and analyzing any sediment in them.
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binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2622 on: June 27, 2019, 08:06:43 AM »

Rod suggest that this might be sediment from rivers that is caught in the ice during refreeze which to me sounds interesting - but not very likely considering the movements of the ice, where most of the Chukchi ice originates above the CAA.

I did not say sediment from rivers.  I said sediment from coastal erosion.  I also said I was guessing and that I might be wrong.

It still seems to fit what I have observed, but if you feel strongly that the discoloration we see in some of the ice is not sediment, then I respect your opinion.

I think it is an interesting and important question.  I don’t know the answer. I would like to hear what A-Team has to say.

This is what comes from not reading properly what people post. I did say emphatically that I thought the discoloration was from sediment. The question is where this sediment comes from, and seing as how it's something that is repeated each year over a large area, there must be a similarly large and recurring cause for it.
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binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2623 on: June 27, 2019, 08:09:46 AM »
The discoloration of ice in early summer in the Chukchi is an annual thing, I've posted about it previously and nobody seems to have an explanation. Sometimes the discoloration is striated, i.e. there are bands of different colors following the edge of the ice.

If one is familiar with ice, the first thing that comes to mind is that some sort of sediment has been deposited at different times on the surface of the ice, interspersed with snow, hence the striation and different colors.

Also another possibility is some sort of sediment that is evenly distributed throughout the ice, and areas that have seen greater surface melt show greater accumulation of sediment, explaining different colours but not the clear striation.

I've alwas assumed that these were airborn sediments, i.e. ash from wildfires, or more likely, dust from duststorms from the dry Siberian landmass, interspersed with snow.

Rod suggest that this might be sediment from rivers that is caught in the ice during refreeze which to me sounds interesting - but not very likely considering the movements of the ice, where most of the Chukchi ice originates above the CAA.

Image from June 5, 2016. Wrangel Island to the right.

The stretch of coast south of Wrangel (from about 60km west of Billings to Ryrkaypiy) appears to be mostly sand beaches on google earth.

Where I am on the Great Lakes, the ice that forms close to shore on sand beaches gets sand deposited in it. And this often happens in layers as ice forms, then waves come in and crash overtop of the formed ice depositing more sand on top of it. Sometimes the fast ice effectively extends the beach, so that the area where waves crash shifts farther out over successive days/weeks during the freezing season. I've not examined much of that ice, but I would assume it gets the same sand deposits that occur closer to shore.

During melt season, if the ice has built up thick close to shore, it is not unusual to be walking across what you think is beach, until you realize that there's much more ice underneath it. I.e. you're walking on ice covered with sand.

...

Yes, we have many of us seen similar things but on a much smaller scale. The areas of discoloration in the Chuckhi are huge, and the bands up to tens of kilometres across. So to me that implies wind-driven deposit of material, and that the striation is caused by interspersed snowfall.
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jdallen

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2624 on: June 27, 2019, 08:17:12 AM »
The GFS now transitions to an Arctic dipole anomaly. 

The CAA is about to clear out and get hammered as well.  The Southern 1/3rd of the CAB is also forecasted to get hit hard.
I'm looking at ice quality and pondering the current forecast - massive heat building up over Europe going somewhere, potential dipole, current torching.

I going to be more (and happily) astonished if the ice survives this without a new record; at the very least without it getting into the top 3 years for low sea ice extent/area.  It will take some pretty miraculous weather.

As to when we will see things go one way or another - I read ice quality for that.  I'm currently of the opinion we should start to see very dramatic drops, particularly in area, starting in 10-14 days.  Areas like the Kara, Barents, ESS and Laptev, along with portions of the Beaufort will start to loose all that thin FYI that formed between older pack over the winter, or, where it is currently all FYI, will begin to fade to nothing quite rapidly as the combination of bottom melt and torching overwhelms it.  This of course doesn't include the typical losses in the Hudson and Baffin, which are just going to pump up the numbers overall.

... but 10-14 days.  That's where I'll be looking for a sign the season will stay within the general realm of behavior we've seen since 2012, or we enter uncharted melt season territory.
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slow wing

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2625 on: June 27, 2019, 08:56:12 AM »
The discoloration of ice in early summer in the Chukchi is an annual thing, I've posted about it previously and nobody seems to have an explanation. Sometimes the discoloration is striated, i.e. there are bands of different colors following the edge of the ice...

Growth of algae, mostly on the undersurface of the ice, may well be the cause of dirty ice you have been seeing each year in early summer in the Chukchi Sea.

The photo -- and others in the article -- are from June 2009 in the Chukchi.

"This was not dirt, but massive blooms of sea ice algae, such as the aptly named ice diatom Nitzschia frigida."

The algae grow when the ice is just thin enough for the sunlight to penetrate.

The author, Dr. Bruce Marcot, speculates that warming of the Arctic may lead to more of this algae growth, potentially enhancing the melting of the ice.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 09:10:56 AM by slow wing »

BenB

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2626 on: June 27, 2019, 09:04:51 AM »
I found a paper called:

Sediment transport by sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas: Increasing importance due to changing ice conditions?

Quote: Sediment-laden sea ice is widespread over the shallow, wide Siberian Arctic shelves, with off-shelf export from theLaptev and East Siberian Seas contributing substantially to the Arctic Ocean’s sediment budget.

Also (my  bold): Sediment loads averaged at 128 t km–2, with sediment occurring in layers of roughly 0.5 m thickness, mostly in the lower ice layers.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/40de/e8b9d38feb5d9cfc74ad898d904892a87ac7.pdf

So, I would guess that it's sediment. I would guess that the darkness is at least partly an indicator of thickness, as when the ice melts, most of the sediment remains, as others have suggested. Also, if the sediment is mainly in the lower ice layers, it would only become more visible as surface melt progresses.

I don't have time to read the full article at the moment, but it would be interesting if someone did have time to look at it properly.

BenB

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2627 on: June 27, 2019, 09:54:42 AM »
Anyway, this set up with high pressure over most of the Arctic and low pressure over the Barents Sea perfectly aligned for Fram export:



combined with highish temperatures won't do the ice pack much good. The heat only increases and becomes more generalised as we head into the more speculative territory of 5-day forecasts. The only part that gets some protection is the Siberian coast, but it may be too late to do much good to the ice there.

peterlvmeng

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2628 on: June 27, 2019, 10:15:49 AM »
The euro shows a tendency that high pressure ridge intruding arctic from CAA and Alaska. Torching is still in Day10 forecast.

RikW

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2629 on: June 27, 2019, 10:16:50 AM »
I find it extremely unlikely that heat from vegetation fires in Siberia can have any measurable effect on melting in the Arctic. If anybody wants to make such claims, year after year, perhaps they could get the calorific calculations done first?

If I remember correctly the heat isn't the problem, but the ash falling on the ice

aslan

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2630 on: June 27, 2019, 10:30:58 AM »
Anyway, this set up with high pressure over most of the Arctic and low pressure over the Barents Sea perfectly aligned for Fram export:



combined with highish temperatures won't do the ice pack much good. The heat only increases and becomes more generalised as we head into the more speculative territory of 5-day forecasts. The only part that gets some protection is the Siberian coast, but it may be too late to do much good to the ice there.

And in the long range, GFS 00Z is really bad, and IFS 00Z is cataclysmic. And the ensembles are not far away from operationnals. In the meantime, Kotelnyj is still runing full steam ahead with again a Tx > 20°C and permanent sunshine... As a consequence SST in the polynia are trough the roof, nearing 10°C according to DMI.



aslan

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2631 on: June 27, 2019, 10:31:41 AM »
I find it extremely unlikely that heat from vegetation fires in Siberia can have any measurable effect on melting in the Arctic. If anybody wants to make such claims, year after year, perhaps they could get the calorific calculations done first?

If I remember correctly the heat isn't the problem, but the ash falling on the ice

Yes, ashes darken the ice, increasing heat absorption.

Aluminium

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2632 on: June 27, 2019, 10:41:09 AM »
June 22-26.

2018.

binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2633 on: June 27, 2019, 11:07:56 AM »
I find it extremely unlikely that heat from vegetation fires in Siberia can have any measurable effect on melting in the Arctic. If anybody wants to make such claims, year after year, perhaps they could get the calorific calculations done first?

If I remember correctly the heat isn't the problem, but the ash falling on the ice

Yes, ashes darken the ice, increasing heat absorption.

A well established cause of melting at least on the Greenland Glacier and presumably also on sea ice. And that's why I specificially mentioned "heat" - since every now and then you actually see somebody making such claims.
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Neven

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2634 on: June 27, 2019, 11:10:46 AM »
It shouldn't take much longer before all this stuff starts to get translated into the extent/area numbers.
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Rich

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2635 on: June 27, 2019, 11:26:21 AM »
June 22-26.

2018.

Thank you Aluminum 

Last day of the gif, developments near the mouth of the McKenzie River Delta are interesting as melt appears to hit  higher gear.

The cyclonic wind in the Beaufort is pushing the ice into a death zone of warm water on the Alaskan coast.

The northern sea route gets closer to opening. The section connecting the ESS to the Laptev looks like it will be last. Plenty of warmth there. A bit of a cliffhanger to see if it opens before end of june.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 12:16:41 PM by Rich »

binntho

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2636 on: June 27, 2019, 11:36:44 AM »
I found a paper called:

Sediment transport by sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas: Increasing importance due to changing ice conditions?
...
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/40de/e8b9d38feb5d9cfc74ad898d904892a87ac7.pdf

A really great find! Of course, the sedimentary origin of the discoloration has never been in doubt as far as I am concerned until slow wing pointed out that algae growth on the underside can cause the same effect.

But according to the abovementioned paper, the discoloration in the Chukchi is apparently caused in the following manner along the Alaska/Canada shore.

Over shallow waters, preferably 20 - 30 meters but up to 50 meters, turbulence caused by strong winds can lift sediments from the sea floor, at the same time as frazil ice is formed on the surface. Throughout winter, strong offshore winds can create temporary polynia where the process can repeat itself, thus continuing to catch sediments throughout winter.
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
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Clenchie

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2637 on: June 27, 2019, 11:53:48 AM »
Looks like high winds round the top of Greenland today.
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Sterks

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2638 on: June 27, 2019, 12:14:08 PM »
Wow the Laptev bite is racing to reach 80N, and it is not even July.
Looking at Aluminum gif I would have said it's beyond July 15 image.

Sterks

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2639 on: June 27, 2019, 12:34:52 PM »
The EC shows now almost constant sucking of air from the Pacific into the Arctic. The final days of the run are not to be relied, but put that Eolo head on the Bering Sea looking toward the Pole, you get the idea.

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2640 on: June 27, 2019, 12:51:01 PM »
The EC shows now almost constant sucking of air from the Pacific into the Arctic. The final days of the run are not to be relied, but put that Eolo head on the Bering Sea looking toward the Pole, you get the idea.

It's not just warm air heading for the Arctic. You've got 20 knot winds lined up for 1,000 miles pointing right at the Bering Strait. It's going to push warm water into the Arctic as well.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 01:22:30 PM by Rich »

Sterks

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2641 on: June 27, 2019, 12:58:18 PM »
The EC shows now almost constant sucking of air from the Pacific into the Arctic. The final days of the run are not to be relied, but put that Eolo head on the Bering Sea looking toward the Pole, you get the idea.

It's not just warm air heading for the Arctic. Yoy've got 20 knot winds lined up for 1,000 miles pointing right at the Bering Strait. It's going to push warm water into the Arctic as well.
That's right, and the Beaufort would the right palm on it.... But we'll see...

Sterks

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2642 on: June 27, 2019, 01:38:58 PM »
The EC forecast for CAA is also really bad!!
Sorry that I don't post charts, no time now. And I'm sure with this forecast better analyses are coming soon.

Pagophilus

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2643 on: June 27, 2019, 03:31:17 PM »
June 22-26.

Thanks again, Aluminium.  NSIDC extent comparison map showing changes over the last two weeks shown below to add to your animation.

Most notable to me on the NSIDC image, apart from the expected general peripheral ice loss, are the large declines in extent in Hudson Bay and in the Kara Sea.

Much of the Kara Sea loss is attributable to the low that has persistently centered over Novya Zemlya (X, bottom image) for much of the past week, scooping ice out of the Kara (arrow).  There has been melting too, of course.  This low is forecast to disperse after June 28.

Extent (not new ice !!!) has grown in the Beaufort through dispersion as the main pack has squeezed towards the Canadian side.  And the two tongues of ice in the Barentz, again produced by dispersion, remain stubbornly in place, melting out slowly, I believe, because the Barentz sea surface has been cooled by all the ice extruded into it this spring and summer.  How much longer can they persist?   

'Growth' of extent in the Laptev is due, I think, to extensive melt ponding in the Laptev two weeks ago fooling the AMSR2 instrument into showing open ocean there.
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2644 on: June 27, 2019, 03:37:19 PM »
It is mostly algae causing the discoloration of ice.  At least, I'm pretty sure of it.

Reduced sea ice – big consequences
Quote
Ice algae and phytoplankton are two distinct primary producers which are fundamental for the Arctic marine ecosystem. The ice algae grow within and on the underside of the sea ice, while phytoplankton grow in open waters. These algae are the basis for all life in the Arctic, as they produce exclusively omega-3 fatty acids, which humans also need.


"Ice algae plays a huge role in the Arctic food web." Aboard the USCGC Healy icebreaker in the northern Chukchi Sea.
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Pagophilus

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2645 on: June 27, 2019, 03:38:55 PM »
I found a paper called:

Sediment transport by sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas: Increasing importance due to changing ice conditions?
...
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/40de/e8b9d38feb5d9cfc74ad898d904892a87ac7.pdf

A really great find! Of course, the sedimentary origin of the discoloration has never been in doubt as far as I am concerned until slow wing pointed out that algae growth on the underside can cause the same effect.

But according to the abovementioned paper, the discoloration in the Chukchi is apparently caused in the following manner along the Alaska/Canada shore.

Over shallow waters, preferably 20 - 30 meters but up to 50 meters, turbulence caused by strong winds can lift sediments from the sea floor, at the same time as frazil ice is formed on the surface. Throughout winter, strong offshore winds can create temporary polynia where the process can repeat itself, thus continuing to catch sediments throughout winter.

This explanation makes sense to me, as the sediments must be present in the water as the ice forms.  In addition, the Chukchi is the most southerly part of the Arctic Ocean and so is likely to remain unfrozen longer, allowing late-year storms to churn up sediments there. 

I also would propose that the algae hypothesis can be combined with this explanation.  If there are more sediments in the ice, there are therefore more nutrients, and algae will grow faster in these conditions.
You may delay, but time will not.   Benjamin Franklin.

Pagophilus

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2646 on: June 27, 2019, 03:46:27 PM »
It is mostly algae causing the discoloration of ice.  At least, I'm pretty sure of it.

This may well be correct, but it still begs the question as to why such algal growth would be so prominent in the Chukchi as opposed to elsewhere. 

Perhaps it is temperature related.  However, in my experience, the presence of nutrients is often more key to algal growth.  So I think the sediment hypothesis, providing extra nutrients to the ice, should be considered at least as part of the phenomenon.
You may delay, but time will not.   Benjamin Franklin.

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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2647 on: June 27, 2019, 03:54:20 PM »
Algae vs. Sediments - I would go for a little bit of both! But the discoloration and striation in the Chukchi is probably best explained by sediments churned up by stormy weather as the paper explains.

Other places show very dirty ice as well, just take a look at Foxe Basin (north of Hudson).
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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2648 on: June 27, 2019, 03:56:24 PM »
Arctic Ocean lowest for this time of year.

Your graphs seem to be of the Arctic Basin, which has been "lowest for the date" for quite some time using the 3.125 km AMSR2 numbers?

However Arctic wide sea ice extent has now joined area as lowest for the date in the high resolution AMSR2 record:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2019/06/facts-about-the-arctic-in-june-2019/#Jun-27
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Re: The 2019 melting season
« Reply #2649 on: June 27, 2019, 04:32:11 PM »
Not sure if this is the correct thread, but here goes!

Does anyone know if the recent Raikoke eruption is large enough to have a global temperature effect?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/06/26/this-volcano-just-erupted-after-nearly-century-silence-astronauts-captured-breathtaking-scene-miles-above/?utm_term=.ba01ec18759e