JAXA 2019 Arctic SIE September daily minimum: June Poll

[Juan C. García]

The poll is for the minimum Daily Arctic sea ice extent in September 2019, as measured by JAXA (ADS-NIPR-VISHOP).

September mínimums have been:

 Year               Extent
                  10^6 km2
1980's Avg.     7.19
1990's Avg.     6.49
2000's Avg.     5.41
2010's Avg.     4.33
2000               6.04
2001               6.55
2002               5.51
2003               5.93
2004               5.68
2005               5.18
2006               5.63
2007               4.07
2008               4.50
2009               5.05
2010               4.62
2011               4.27
2012               3.18
2013               4.81
2014               4.88
2015               4.26
2016               4.02
2017               4.47
2018               4.46

Order by lowest to highest:

[Juan C. García]

As of today: 3.75 to 4.25M km2.

But I can go lower before the poll ends… 

[Stephan]

I am with you, Juan - and thanks for starting this poll.

[Avalonian]

As ever, it depends entirely on the weather. But one day we probably won't dodge the bullet... and this year seems ominous on numerous levels, so I'm going to assume this is when all the little snowflakes come home to roost (to slightly mix my metaphors...). 3-3.5 for me; I'm hedging on whether the record will go, but my hunch is that we'll breeze past second place. 

[Neven]

Thanks for opening the polls again, Juan! 

Until when can votes be cast? I'll probably wait until the last moment.

edit: Silly me, it's right there under the poll: June 11th.

[Sterks]

As of today: 3.75 to 4.25M km2.

But I can go lower before the poll ends… 

Subscribed to that, momentarily

[pauldry600]

I think 3.50 to 4 with 3.91 my min

[b_lumenkraft]

Since i suspect this to become a 2012ish year, i voted 3 - 3.5. Anything else strikes me as too optimistic.

[DavidR]

The distribution of ice at this stage looks much more like 2012 and 2016 than any of the other years this decade so I predict a low outcome 3.5 - 4.0.

[Archimid]

Where can I get the most recent data for this poll?

[crandles]

Where can I get the most recent data for this poll?

https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent/&time=2019-05-31%2000:00:00

Or click the graph (1st on third row) on graph page https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/
then click 'Extent Graph' tab

[Archimid]

There it is. Thank you Crandles.

[icefisher]

With ice detached and spreading, a potential June dipole and late season storminess 4.26-4.3.  Expecting a new low volume for all the above reasons.

[gerontocrat]

Where can I get the most recent data for this poll?

ASIF Thread entitled "2019 Sea Ice Extent and Area Data"

[Archimid]

ASIF Thread entitled "2019 Sea Ice Extent and Area Data"

Of course! I look at that thread everyday, more than once a day.

But I needed something a bit raw, not the nicely cooked stuff over that thread. I just wanted a baseline for this poll and I got it. Approximately 4.521. I'm going for that in the poll.

[CameraMan]

My lawn dart comes in about 3.9 at the moment, so either 3.5-4 or 3.75-4.25.   Last year I went high.  The ice was in bad shape, weather didn't seem unusually conducive to melt.   This year I'm going low (3.5 - 4.0) as the ice is no better, and weather is worse.   We could still get a break, but there's no sign of it in sight.   

[petm]

3.5 - 4.0
Too early to tell. Could easily be under 4 or even 3.5. Or maybe could dodge the bullet again.

[oren]

This early in the season anything can happen but considering the possible outcomes:
It could stall at some point, like many years do, and end up in a respectable position (4-4.25) or ho hum (4.25-4.5).
It could continue churning on and end up second (3.25 - 4.00).
It could crash and keep crashing, thus achieving a new record (2.75-3.25).
Given current 2016 behavior with lots of early open water in the Inner Basin soaking up the sun, I highly doubt the 4.25-4.5 bracket. Adding the high pressure bringing clear skies, and the strong export, I think 2019 has a really good shot (50%+) at second place, with fair probability (30%) of respectable 4-4.25. The probability of being 2012 and below is also there, 5%-10% in any given year at this date, and higher this year (15%-20%?).
I voted 3.5-4 as a proxy for the above.

[Aluminium]

Second place is the most probable this year according to linear long-term trend of minimums.

[Paddy]

 I've gone for 4 to 4.5, in keeping with the last 4 years.

EDIT: Gone down to the 3.75 to 4.25 bin after a browse of the melting season thread.

[Sam]

The hallmark warning for when the ice fails badly and the bottom falls out of the September minimum will likely be when the ice extent breaks through the recent mid-July bottleneck of about 7.4 million km² for the front runners for most extensive melt.

[Rich]

My first poll of this kind. Seems weird to guess what the weather will bring.

Seems like the prediction that 2019 will wind up in second place behind 2012 is the safe choice.

That said, I'll go with 2.99 km2. Not so much that I  think it goes there, but as a reminder that it's possible.

[gerontocrat]

The hallmark warning for when the ice fails badly and the bottom falls out of the September minimum will likely be when the ice extent breaks through the recent mid-July bottleneck of about 7.4 million km² for the front runners for most extensive melt.

The Slater projection is 7.15 million km2 for the 23rd July

https://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/SEAICE/

[Stephan]

The Slater projection is 7.15 million km2 for the 23rd July

...which is a tiny little bit above the JAXA 2010s average for that day...

[Juan C. García]

JAXA ARCTIC EXTENT :- 10,777,542 km2（June 3, 2019）
 
The Perils of Projections.
Average remaining melt would give a minimum of 3.92 million km2, ...

As of today: 3.75 to 4.25M km2.

But I can go lower before the poll ends… 

I am going down to 3.5-4.0 M km2.
Even that Gerontocrat “Average remaining melt” is 3.92 million km2 (and it was the reason behind my first forecast), I see weakness (& polynyas) all around the Arctic.
I think that 2019 will have a lower extent that what the average melt estimates.

[magnamentis]

opted for 3.25 - 3.75 because i believe that we're getting close to 2012 even without the then main drivers to minimum, simply because the starting point is much lower in all parameters, extent, area as well as thickness/volume

as we all know a cold july can postpone that again but sooner or later we won't dodge that cannonball anymore.

[Brigantine]

Link to Last year's same poll.

I just came back to ASIF after not keeping up for a few months... because poll season!

I have a lot of reading to do before I decide on a number... things like how well June anomalies correlate with September, what the ice surface is looking like this year and how it compares, etc.

UPDATE: relevant comment on the state of the ice surface, with links to relevant data. [HT Michael Hauber]
UPDATE 2: relevant comments on melt onset / momentum. [HT Neven]
And SMOS 10 year comparison [HT slow wing]

And then here's last year's predict-o-matic [HT Ned W] including confidence intervals. Adjusting for current JAXA data [HT Juan C. Garcia], 2019 minimum should be 4.02 +/- 1.26 (95% CI) based on predictive power of June 7 extent alone.

Provisionally voted for 3.75 - 4.25 atm, I'm thinking medium confidence.
Raised it to 4.00 - 4.50 after looking at that SMOS beige pixel count graph.

[oren]

Welcome back Brigantine... lots to catch up.

[johnm33]

Atlantic waters are already melting out Laptev, their penetration along the shelf by CAA is complete enough to melt out the thickest ice entering the gyre. So no ice forcing it's way east meeting no ice forcing it's way west. The garlic press looks like it's going to become a waste disposal in 2-3 weeks. I voted a pessimistic under 2.

[diablobanquisa]

I voted between 3.25 and 3.75 million km^2. This year I am pessimistic: sunny start to the melt season with Highs and even a Dipole-like pattern,  low continental snow cover, Beaufort early opening, thickest ice pilled towards Fram...

It will depend on the weather during the next three months, but in my opinion it looks worse than in previous years (even if Cryosat spring thickness data were rather good).

[Juan C. García]

Only two day left, to vote or change your vote! 

[Michael Hauber]

Not as good a start as 2012, but not that far behind, and 7 years of global warming since then, so I vote 3-3.5 to roughly equal 2012.  I think I've been voting most years for beating or equalling 2012 so.....

[Pavel]

I've been waiting until this day to put my vote and now I think the new record is possible, my guess between 3 and 3,50

[Juan C. García]

Thanks for opening the polls again, Juan! 

Until when can votes be cast? I'll probably wait until the last moment.

edit: Silly me, it's right there under the poll: June 11th.

My June predictions are as follows:
JAXA: 3.5 to 4.0, medium
NSIDC: 4.0 to 4.5, medium

Hi Neven.
Should we assume that these are your votes?
Only one day left to vote!
Everyone: Don't forget to do it! 

[Neven]

Hi Neven.
Should we assume that these are your votes?

Yes, that's right. I decided not to be too conservative for a change, otherwise I would have gone up a bin or two.

[slow wing]

"Between 3.75 and 4.25 million km^2"

I took the US Navy's thickness prediction for a week from now & then drew in a boundary line for the extrapolation to the end of the melt season.

I sketched in the line based roughly on the following criteria

1) to a first approximation, ice below about 1.3 m thick on 17 June will melt out, ice thicker than that won't;

2) some of the ice thicker than that will anyway melt out if it is in the shallow water and more than 10 degrees south - this is ice on the Russian side and in the Beaufort. For example, I don't expect the fast ice in the ESS to survive;

3) some ice that is already right near the edge of the pack should also melt out;

4) ice that is heading for the Fram Strait will then melt out.


I then eyeballed the region inside the red sketch line, comparing it in size to the '80 degrees north' circle. There seems to be about as much ice outside the circle that is predicted to survive as there is ice inside the circle predicted to melt (or as land).

So my daily extent prediction for the end of the melt season is, near enough, the area of the 80 degrees circle.

I know the circumference of the Earth is 40,000 km - it was defined thus at one time. So the area of the circle (ignoring curvature effect) = pi * (10,000 km/9)^2 ~ 3.9 million km^2.

I'd give a 2/3 chance (~'1 sigma confidence level') it ends up within plus-or-minus 0.7 million km^2 of this - so in the range [3.2,4.6] million km^2.

That is my daily minimum extent prediction.

For the monthly minimum extent prediction, I will just add 0.35 million km^2 - which is the difference in the two parameters for the 2010s average (4.68-4.33) - so will choose the bin best bracketing 3.90+0.35 = 4.25. That is the bin ""Between 4.0 and 4.5 million km^2".

[RoxTheGeologist]

Wow. I just guessed 3.75-4.25.

[ArcticMelt2]

I put on 2.2. The probability of recurrence of extremely warm weather, as in 2007 and 2012, is very high (there have been too many cold years in recent years). Very warm weather in the East Siberian sector now confirms this.

The Pacific sector is record bad, and the excess on the Atlantic side will collapse soon.

In addition, the starting conditions for the area of multi-year ice are also the worst.

Although in April 2019 the percentage of multi-year ice was comparable to 2017, 2013, 2012, 2008, it is necessary to take into account that the total area in April 2019 set a new record.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2019/05/Figure4real-350x468.png
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2019/05/Figure3.png

According to these schemes in April 2019, the area of multi-year ice was close to 4 million kilometers. But this data is too high. According to another diagram, the most likely area of multi-year ice in the Arctic is now closer to only one million square kilometers.

https://cdn.iopscience.com/images/1748-9326/13/10/105005/Full/erlaae3ecf4_lr.jpg

In this regard, by September there will be very little ice in the Arctic.

[ArcticMelt2]

According to another diagram, the most likely area of multi-year ice in the Arctic is now closer to only one million square kilometers.

This is supported by a fresh card:



The current area of multi-year ice is much smaller than the area of ice at the time of the 2012 minimum (3.2 million km2). Plus, it is obvious that much of this ice (near Svalbard and Greenland, in the Beaufort Sea) will be destroyed by September.

Already, the water near Alaska is very hot:

[Pmt111500]

Also in the 'shock'-category, I just think it's wrong that people who started following this after 2007 or 2012 haven't had the experience.

[gerontocrat]

I am sticking to a JAXA minimum of 4,000,000 km2. 2nd - just.

There will be alarums and confusions from here to then, but that is what will be the outcome. After its all over, definitely a case of ..

"I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

[Alison]

Ah - I see you changed to third-lowest Jaxa today on the data thread 😀

[gerontocrat]

Ah - I see you changed to third-lowest Jaxa today on the data thread 😀

With only about one third of melting done, we have merely consumed the aperitif. The main course is about to be served, while desert might be delayed until mid-August while cheese, grapes and liqueurs may or may not be served in September.

And none of us get to choose the menu.

[Neven]

But we do have to pay the bill.

[Pragma]

But we do have to pay the bill.

Not long ago, I used to think I could duck out the door before the waiter got back.

Now every day, I think that less and less.