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Archimid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #100 on: July 24, 2020, 01:35:29 PM »
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If a BOE for a few days represents a hole out of which arctic ice cannot climb, then it is a tipping point.

But this is a quantity not a quality. If the world gets cold enough, the Arctic will refreeze.  The Arctic sea ice cover will return if the conditions for its return are there. I think history and models agree with that.

But it is not just the Arctic we are taling about here. The Arctic sea ice is connected to  oceanic and atmospheric circulations that have been relatively stable and warm for 10,000 years. As the Arctic breaks down those millenary circulations break and what we get are never before seen weather patterns. This process already started.

I don't know that restoring the ice would restore the weather to holocene patterns without a few thousand laps around the sun to smooth things out.

I'm sure that millions if not billions of humans will adapt. But gosh is going to suck. (it already sucks, it will suck exponentially more or none at all)
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dnem

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #101 on: July 24, 2020, 01:51:53 PM »
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If a BOE for a few days represents a hole out of which arctic ice cannot climb, then it is a tipping point.

But this is a quantity not a quality. If the world gets cold enough, the Arctic will refreeze. 

Well sure, if it was cold and cloudy enough all summer the ice would not melt.  But if the system has strong hysteresis, a single summer melt may push it far enough that any reasonably expected subsequent freeze cannot repair it and the system will fall into a new state. If the arctic night can essentially reset any extreme summer melt, the system will not enter a new state.

If the planet were to enter a new cold climate regime, it could certainly push the arctic back out of a new low ice equilibrium, but that is highly unlikely under our current regime of increasing CO2 and temperatures.

Archimid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #102 on: July 24, 2020, 02:25:35 PM »
I'm very unsure on what will happen after the first BOE ( N80 Summer temps above historic average).

Most of the heat that is trapped in the ocean after a BOE will be vented to the atmosphere and then to space the following winter. Winter is guaranteed to be dark and very cold. There will be ice in the Arctic during winter.

I imagine the increased temperature of the ocean will be releasing humidity and heat until well into winter when ice can finally form. By then must summer heat has vented to space or become trapped in the deeper ocean.

 To me, this summer/winter, ocean/ice interaction says that after the first BOE ungodly snow storms will form over the NH.  This is an already observable continuum that is bound to get worse as heat is accumulated in the Arctic Ocean.

I think there is a distinct posibility that a BOE leads to a snowball NH.  In turn, that snowball NH leads to sea ice recovery due to lower NH albedo.

Also, greenland. Following the D-O analogy, D-O events were often followed by Heinrich events. We don't have the glaciers to form an iceberg armada, but we do have Greenland ice. If it is warm N80, greenland is going to be melting. This will affect sea ice. It may help it, it may hinder it, I don't know.

So even if we have a returning Arctic, it can be very bad for humans.
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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #103 on: July 24, 2020, 02:31:27 PM »
So you expect “ocean effect” storms?

El Cid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #104 on: July 24, 2020, 02:43:24 PM »
I imagine the increased temperature of the ocean will be releasing humidity and heat ...

 To me, this summer/winter, ocean/ice interaction says that after the first BOE ungodly snow storms will form over the NH.

Except, it won't be snowstorms but lots of rain. With an open ocean, all that heat and humidity will be pushed towards the Equator and will fall as rain not snow. With the Arctic Ocean at around 0+ C at that time I do not see how that would fall as snow. Yes, it will be snow in Siberia but it will most likely be rain in Europe. There might be somewhat more snow mass but less snow extent as the snowline moves ever closer to the Pole

Archimid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #105 on: July 24, 2020, 03:10:11 PM »
In the "Northern hemisphere snow" thread, ASIFers track snow cover. I think the clear trend has been of "highly increased snow volume"  and  "highly volatile snow extent".

 So if a this is a continuum that has already started, the effects of a BOE on the climate could be an exageration of what is already happenning.

"Highly increased snow volume"  exagerate to "mountains of snow".

"Highly volatile snow extent" is more difficult to pin down but I imagine it means wild swings in temperature that will quickly render thick snow to melt water. Some of that water will indeed fall as water not snow.

But it could be that "highly increased snow volume" overrides the "highly volatile snow extent" and we get a snowglobe NH. In that case the ice could return with a vengeance, even if all of it is first year ice.
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Tony Mcleod

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #106 on: July 24, 2020, 03:43:13 PM »
a tipping point requires a feedback mechanism it is not just an arbitrary milestone along the way.

 What mechanism changes near a BOE? I say near a blue ocean event because their is little point in arguing the exact definition. If someone comes up with a tipping point near a BOE that would provide a compelling case to change the definition to that tipping point. A BOE may be radically different than the past what changes it from before a near BOE to after a near BOE

I fail to see how a BOE cannot be a tipping point. It marks the point when massive amounts of energy starts pouring into warming the water instead of just melting it. Summer temps are currently capped at a few degrees above freezing. Take a look at any previous year here http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
A BOE breaks that cap, resulting in spiking summer water temps, hastening the melt of the remaining ice, a later, even more feeble refreeze, etc, etc.
There are probably scores of feedbacks in the Arctic both positive and negative. Having no ice to soak up summer heat will be a massive positive. Another is the vast areas of water newly exposed to the wind. Not much wave induced mixing under a layer of ice, but with wide stretches of open water, wind driven waves can potentially stir up warmer water from below. That in combination with the latent heat issue overlaid on a background global warming will surely (barring the refuting of GHG theory and the deniers being right after all by a sudden plunge into a new Little Ice Age) accelerate the warming, making an ice comeback all but impossible. A clear, sharp tipping point.

Apart from the drop in albedo adding to the global warming rate, who knows what weather pattern changes we might see, including eye-watering blocking patterns causing unprecedented extremes in temperature and rainfall, a flip from a three cell atmospheric pattern to two. Nothing that is going to be of any help for complex, fragile, delicately poised human systems.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #107 on: July 24, 2020, 03:54:46 PM »
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a flip from a three cell atmospheric pattern to two
I read somewhere here that two cell atmospheric patters are unstable and quickly transition to one cell equitable patterns (IIRC).

Tony Mcleod

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #108 on: July 24, 2020, 04:06:40 PM »
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a flip from a three cell atmospheric pattern to two
I read somewhere here that two cell atmospheric patters are unstable and quickly transition to one cell equitable patterns (IIRC).

Equitable as in hippos in the Thames?

bbr2315

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #109 on: July 24, 2020, 04:24:43 PM »
An equable climate is impossible as long as Greenland is extant. I would suggest we are transitioning to a regime where the CAB is seasonally ice-free and the peripheral seas / Hudson and CAA becomes "bastions" of MYI.

1. CAB goes BOE
2. North America / CAA / Hudson Bay become new cold pole adjacent to Greenland / MYI begins surviving in CAA and Hudson or Foxe as well as along Beaufort shoreline
3. Eurasia corresponds and MYI begins surviving along Siberian / Okhotsk shorelines
4. Situation continues / +SWE and +SCE anomalies continue growing until CAB refreezes in 5-10 years, at which point seasonal volume gains have deposited thousands of KM^3 of ice atop North America and Eurasia. As CAB refreezes, the crysophere reinvigorates further, and most continental areas above 40N begin seeing snowfall year-round, and MYI also begins rapid regrowth as human civilization collapses.

kassy

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #110 on: July 24, 2020, 04:34:33 PM »
A BoE means the Arctic changes from a polar desert to a normal sea that is a tipping point at least for that sea.
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bbr2315

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #111 on: July 24, 2020, 04:37:40 PM »
A BoE means the Arctic changes from a polar desert to a normal sea that is a tipping point at least for that sea.
Indeed it does, but why must a BoE be permanent? Why can't a BoE last until the heat anomaly is resolved through +continental albedo and +ice melt from Greenland / derivative surface cooling?

Why wouldn't the Earth-climate system attempt to equalize temps at current levels by balancing the deficient ice cover with enhanced continental snowcover? This resolves the anomaly and maintains stasis as best as possible, which an efficient system is designed to do (and evidently our stasis point is around the current global temperature).

We are definitely entitled to disagree however my personal opinion is that a BoE is the last phase before the continents begin to re-glaciate, with heat accumulated in the deep Arctic that surfaces during BoE corresponding to the severity of the event (more deep ocean heating = more snowfall when it goes BoE). Such an abrupt transition explains the Younger Dryas and other abrupt rafting / cooling events in the NHEM historically. Occam's Razor says it will also occur in this interlude.

I would suggest the scale of what is imminent re: Greenland / BoE CAB is equivalent to the Japanese military campaign in the Second World War. The initial battles were against enemies that were easily beaten and destroyed. However, cockiness and desperation re: oil ultimately led the Japanese to overconfidence, attacking Pearl Harbor, and waking a sleeping giant that ultimately resulted in their defeat. Greenland is our Pearl Harbor. The scale of the ice that is going to melt there once we go BOE is unprecedented, and the funny thing is the meltwater is probably going to end up in the NW NATL, NOT the CAB!

kassy

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #112 on: July 24, 2020, 04:44:24 PM »
An equable climate is impossible as long as Greenland is extant. I would suggest we are transitioning to a regime where the CAB is seasonally ice-free and the peripheral seas / Hudson and CAA becomes "bastions" of MYI.

1. CAB goes BOE
2. North America / CAA / Hudson Bay become new cold pole adjacent to Greenland / MYI begins surviving in CAA and Hudson or Foxe as well as along Beaufort shoreline
3. Eurasia corresponds and MYI begins surviving along Siberian / Okhotsk shorelines
4. Situation continues / +SWE and +SCE anomalies continue growing until CAB refreezes in 5-10 years, at which point seasonal volume gains have deposited thousands of KM^3 of ice atop North America and Eurasia. As CAB refreezes, the crysophere reinvigorates further, and most continental areas above 40N begin seeing snowfall year-round, and MYI also begins rapid regrowth as human civilization collapses.

Ah our pet theory.

2 Basically the cold poles are already there. That does not really help now and i fail to see how it will help in the future.

3 By what mechanism?

4 Have you ever considered that the normal ice age scenario might not be possible out of certain bounds?
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kassy

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #113 on: July 24, 2020, 04:50:48 PM »
A BoE means the Arctic changes from a polar desert to a normal sea that is a tipping point at least for that sea.
Indeed it does, but why must a BoE be permanent? Why can't a BoE last until the heat anomaly is resolved through +continental albedo and +ice melt from Greenland / derivative surface cooling?

Maybe check the input heat.

Lets wait and see and for consistency the pet theory is of limits again.
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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #114 on: July 24, 2020, 05:01:57 PM »
I seem to be on a digging expedition, third link to old posts... This image is from last september.

Agreed on the necessity of absence of Greenland Ice Sheet if we're going equable climate but, waiting for that to disappear, some sort of distorted two-cell system might be a summertime phenomenon over Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic tries to build up a high pressure area during summers but can't because of constant moisture condensation. The moisture then wanders off to continents having higher pressure areas wandering round the high continental latitudes, wa/cc for winter and for summer it could be ma/dc (moist arctic/dry continents), to coin an acronym. Definitely fits to Siberian forest fires and why not Alaska/Canada as well.

bbr2315

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #115 on: July 24, 2020, 05:16:43 PM »
I seem to be on a digging expedition, third link to old posts... This image is from last september.

Agreed on the necessity of absence of Greenland Ice Sheet if we're going equable climate but, waiting for that to disappear, some sort of distorted two-cell system might be a summertime phenomenon over Northern Hemisphere. The Arctic tries to build up a high pressure area during summers but can't because of constant moisture condensation. The moisture then wanders off to continents having higher pressure areas wandering round the high continental latitudes, wa/cc for winter and for summer it could be ma/dc (moist arctic/dry continents), to coin an acronym. Definitely fits to Siberian forest fires and why not Alaska/Canada as well.

To Kassy's point -- I don't want to drag the thread OT, so I will refrain from posting anything new, but I do agree with this ^ post as well in some respect, however I think WACCY weather is actually *most* prominent in spring / summertime as we approach BOE, as wintertime temps are still very warm over most of North America and Eurasia (although this is irrelevant to snowfall as the warmth is happening in places that are usually absurdly cold, in fact, wintertime warmth is actually beneficial to snowcover depth and extent in the most northerly / elevated areas of the continents).

I think we are moving towards a single Hadley Cell that encompasses the entire NHEM, with an embedded polar cell that will reside over Greenland and Hudson Bay / North America. At certain times of year multiple polar cells will exist under the "greater" Hadley Cell, bounded by geography and albedo, before we eventually shift to two distinct polar cells, one over NAmerica and one over Eurasia, which constantly evacuate heat all-year-round and do so most effectively due to their high albedoes and relatively low latitudes. In fact they will resolve heat so effectively that temperatures are ultimately going to plunge again, IMO.

Most succinctly, the above is summed thusly : as efficiency of the Earth-climate system increases in parallel with total heat added each year, the total heat added must continue growing in tandem with the increasing efficiency of its resolution OR the increased efficiency of the system will result in the runaway extraction of said anomalous heat.

Perhaps this is the crux of my argument: as total heat in the system in creases, the resolution of the heat in the system must also increase at the same rate or faster to avoid a spiraling in global temps, and the way this happens is +albedo atop the continents, especially higher elevations at lower latitudes (e.g. this year's Himalayan anomaly). We have seen this happen to date, I see no reason why it will not happen moving forward, and I do believe I have identified the mechanism already-present, and previously activated, that enables this return to "stasis".

<With some luck next year might provide a test already and if it doesn´t we just have to wait longer. kassy>
« Last Edit: July 24, 2020, 05:43:55 PM by kassy »

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #116 on: July 24, 2020, 05:17:46 PM »
Quote
a flip from a three cell atmospheric pattern to two
I read somewhere here that two cell atmospheric patters are unstable and quickly transition to one cell equitable patterns (IIRC).

Equitable as in hippos in the Thames?

Bingo!

The Walrus

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #117 on: July 24, 2020, 05:22:40 PM »
a tipping point requires a feedback mechanism it is not just an arbitrary milestone along the way.

 What mechanism changes near a BOE? I say near a blue ocean event because their is little point in arguing the exact definition. If someone comes up with a tipping point near a BOE that would provide a compelling case to change the definition to that tipping point. A BOE may be radically different than the past what changes it from before a near BOE to after a near BOE

I fail to see how a BOE cannot be a tipping point. It marks the point when massive amounts of energy starts pouring into warming the water instead of just melting it. Summer temps are currently capped at a few degrees above freezing. Take a look at any previous year here http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
A BOE breaks that cap, resulting in spiking summer water temps, hastening the melt of the remaining ice, a later, even more feeble refreeze, etc, etc.
There are probably scores of feedbacks in the Arctic both positive and negative. Having no ice to soak up summer heat will be a massive positive. Another is the vast areas of water newly exposed to the wind. Not much wave induced mixing under a layer of ice, but with wide stretches of open water, wind driven waves can potentially stir up warmer water from below. That in combination with the latent heat issue overlaid on a background global warming will surely (barring the refuting of GHG theory and the deniers being right after all by a sudden plunge into a new Little Ice Age) accelerate the warming, making an ice comeback all but impossible. A clear, sharp tipping point.

Apart from the drop in albedo adding to the global warming rate, who knows what weather pattern changes we might see, including eye-watering blocking patterns causing unprecedented extremes in temperature and rainfall, a flip from a three cell atmospheric pattern to two. Nothing that is going to be of any help for complex, fragile, delicately poised human systems.

It is not really a tipping point, as the changes are incremental.  There is nothing drastically going from 4M square km to 3, from 3 to 2, etc.  Each change is a small step, and each change is reversible.  Under the right conditions, the ice could increase from 2 to 3, etc.  It has in the past.  As Archimid stated in his post, an open ocean absorbs more heat in the summer, but releases more in the winter.  Nothing has really changed, unless hippos are spotted in the Thames.

bbr2315

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #118 on: July 24, 2020, 05:23:49 PM »
It is not really a tipping point, as the changes are incremental.  There is nothing drastically going from 4M square km to 3, from 3 to 2, etc.  Each change is a small step, and each change is reversible.  Under the right conditions, the ice could increase from 2 to 3, etc.  It has in the past.  As Archimid stated in his post, an open ocean absorbs more heat in the summer, but releases more in the winter.  Nothing has really changed, unless hippos are spotted in the Thames.

This is incorrect, 3->2 can involve most of the CAB going ice-free and its halocline being permanently disturbed. The major changes to CAB look to happen from 3->2M KM^2, IMO.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2020, 05:52:54 PM by kassy »

kassy

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #119 on: July 24, 2020, 05:51:46 PM »
Actually the numbers are pretty useless. What is happening with the seas with all the open waters over the year? (No ice/fresh water lens). How will the currents mix and what will be the weather that actually results?

You can plot lines on extent and area and then uses trends but when it collapses it actually changes to a different system so that will wreck all those in the end. At least that is my working hypothesis.
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Archimid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #120 on: July 24, 2020, 06:23:57 PM »
It is a tipping point.
Please see the variability of average surface summer temperatures vs the variability of winter temperatures.



Summer temperatures at the surface are fixed to the temperature of the ice.
Winter temperatures at the surface vary greatly, according to the weather and climate.

Quote
It is not really a tipping point, as the changes are incremental.

All the years before the first BOE, summer N80 surface temperatures hover aroung 0C. The year of the first BOE N80 surface temperatures will go much higher than typical variablity.
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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #121 on: July 24, 2020, 06:41:06 PM »
It is not really a tipping point, as the changes are incremental.  There is nothing drastically going from 4M square km to 3, from 3 to 2, etc.  Each change is a small step, and each change is reversible.  Under the right conditions, the ice could increase from 2 to 3, etc.  It has in the past.  As Archimid stated in his post, an open ocean absorbs more heat in the summer, but releases more in the winter.  Nothing has really changed, unless hippos are spotted in the Thames.

This is incorrect, 3->2 can involve most of the CAB going ice-free and its halocline being permanently disturbed. The major changes to CAB look to happen from 3->2M KM^2, IMO.

But will it?  I will admit that this is all conjecture at this point, as we cannot truly say what will happen.

kassy

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #122 on: July 24, 2020, 06:50:39 PM »
And all damage accruing over a year by extra warming on the way will add. Not just the sunlight on water but also waters mixing that are no longer stopped by ice in certain area.

Watch the break around 2007 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw7GfNR5PLA&feature=youtu.be
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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #123 on: July 24, 2020, 07:18:25 PM »
Many, previously icy seas had seen their "BOE event" without any runaway processes. Take the Chukchi. It used to be 50-60% covered by ice even during summer and 100% during winter. Now, the past couple of years it almost completely melts out and SSTs rise well above zero - as well as observed air temperatures. This definitely has effects on NH climate but it is not a tipping point. The same would be true for the CAB. There is absolutely no difference (even when the CAB melts out there will be Greenland to keep it close to 0 C). It is just the same as the Chukchi now.

As for snow. I attach the Rutgers NH snow extent for winter. Despite many previously frozen seas melting out during summer there is really no trend in it. The trendline goes from 45,2 to 45,8 mln sqkm which is basically just noise.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #124 on: July 24, 2020, 07:23:17 PM »
Quote
A typical ocean albedo is approximately 0.06, while bare sea ice varies from approximately 0.5 to 0.7. This means that the ocean reflects only 6 percent of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest, while sea ice reflects 50 to 70 percent of the incoming energy.Apr 3, 2020
nsidc.org › cryosphere › seaice › processes › albedo

That is one hell of a lot of extra energy within the earth system.
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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #125 on: July 24, 2020, 07:47:16 PM »


As for snow. I attach the Rutgers NH snow extent for winter. Despite many previously frozen seas melting out during summer there is really no trend in it. The trendline goes from 45,2 to 45,8 mln sqkm which is basically just noise.
What about snow volume and water content in north? Last winter was record breaking ( at least 120 years of observations) in snow volume and water content in northern Finland. I would not be surprised if winter's above Arctic circle would be warmer and more snowy in future.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #126 on: July 24, 2020, 08:15:52 PM »
janne,

i have said as much above. snow volume will very likely grow. what i doubt is the growth of snow extent

Archimid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #127 on: July 24, 2020, 08:33:36 PM »
As for snow. I attach the Rutgers NH snow extent for winter. Despite many previously frozen seas melting out during summer there is really no trend in it. The trendline goes from 45,2 to 45,8 mln sqkm which is basically just noise.

I'll attach Rutgers fall and spring NH snow cover:

First Fall



 The trend is clearly INCRESING, very likely due to things like:

Quote
Take the Chukchi. It used to be 50-60% covered by ice even during summer and 100% during winter. Now, the past couple of years it almost completely melts out and SSTs rise well above zero - as well as observed air temperatures.

Now look at spring:



During spring extent is DECREASING as expected by global warming and higher temperatures.

The tug of war between these two is in the middle of winter when extent has almost no clear trend. It is warmer yet cold enough to freeze, but there is much more water available.

Quote
Many, previously icy seas had seen their "BOE event" without any runaway processes.

Because the Arctic core of cold is still there. N80. Any year now we should see the first blips in the summer temperatures of the N80 chart. I expect it to coincide with record low volume, not necesarily extent. Late blips (late aug) with heavy weather influence are only warnings, if we get them.

I don't think we will get early blips. If it goes early ( July), it goes all out.
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bbr2315

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #128 on: July 24, 2020, 08:39:22 PM »
While NHEM is declining in spring still, I think the trend has reversed in North America, since 2010, 2012, and 2016. It looks like those may have been pivotal years in contributing to the new state of the Arctic. While North America may see continued spring gains moving forward NHEM could still decline overall due to Eurasia IMO.



Fall SCE has grown explosively over North America, although apparently this is now banned from being mentioned. <data is fine. kassy>

« Last Edit: July 25, 2020, 08:18:02 AM by kassy »

El Cid

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #129 on: July 25, 2020, 07:17:43 AM »
Take the Chukchi. It used to be 50-60% covered by ice even during summer and 100% during winter. Now, the past couple of years it almost completely melts out and SSTs rise well above zero - as well as observed air temperatures....

Many, previously icy seas had seen their "BOE event" without any runaway processes.

Because the Arctic core of cold is still there. N80.

Yes, that is why I wrote that the Greenland ice-mass will still be there (for hundreds of years), stopping the Arctic from reaching 20-30 C temperatures during summer even with all the ice gone from the seas.
There WILL be changes, no doubt. But I see no gamechanger exactly because of Greenland. NH mid-to hig latitude weather will change for sure, it will likely be wetter and warmer.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #130 on: July 25, 2020, 03:25:48 PM »
Quote
Yes, that is why I wrote that the Greenland ice-mass will still be there (for hundreds of years), stopping the Arctic from reaching 20-30 C temperatures during summer even with all the ice gone from the seas.

Greenland ice will be buffering a significant part of the heat produced by a BOE event, yes. But I classify this as one of the many consequences of a BOE, not a magical reset mechanism. Sea level will rise faster. Fresh water will change Atlantic circulations. Atmospheric patters will change drastically.

If DO events are an indication, the warming happens over decades and the cooling happens over centuries.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #131 on: July 26, 2020, 07:42:10 PM »
As it happens, only recently, inordinately high levels of methane emissions have been reported, to wit:

(1) Methane Observation – October 2019 -“This is the most powerful seep I have ever been able to observe… No one has ever recorded anything similar.” (Source: Research Vessel Encounters Giant Methane Seep in Arctic Waters, The Maritime Executive, Oct. 10, 2019) The quote is from Igor Semiletov, professor Tomsk Polytechnic University on the research vessel Academic M.A. Lavrentyev on a 40-day Arctic mission.

(2) Methane Observation – December 2019 – Three months later at COP25 in Madrid, Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, in an interview d/d December 10th, 2019, referenced an ongoing eruption of methane above Barrow, Alaska, saying: “We’ve never seen anything like it. And, it has stayed at elevated levels to the present week. Looking at the 2.2 million year ice core, the maximum methane concentration ever was 800 ppb. In Barrow, Alaska it is 2,050 ppb and staying there. It’s been up there for 4 months.”

A note about the Barrow observation – Dr. Peter Carter believes the origin may be permafrost decay from land. However, according to Dr. Wadhams, he’s not so sure of Carter’s explanation and even though the waters offshore Barrow are not known to contain subsea methane, it is theorized the 4-month extremely high CH4 reading may have originated at ESAS and drifted, a theory with forceful negative ramifications.

The Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory was established in 1973 by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Earth System Research Laboratory to track hourly methane readings.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/17/the-rumbling-methane-enigma/

glennbuck

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #132 on: July 27, 2020, 12:09:36 AM »
Watched a conference video with Roger Hallam from Extinction Rebellion and he was talking to a Top Scientist at the IPCC recently off camera who said we would have a BOE by 2025! Another scientist said we would have 6 Celsius warming not 5 Celsius and at 4 Celsius half the world is uninhabitable in 2050, nice there open off camera to admit these things shame they will not go on record!.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 01:49:18 AM by glennbuck »

Lewis

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #133 on: July 27, 2020, 01:33:25 AM »
Watched a conference video with Roger Hallam from Extinction Rebellion and he was talking to a Top Scientist at the IPCC recently off camera who said we would have a BOE by 2025! Another scientist said we would have 6 Celsius warming not 5 Celsius and at 4 Celsius half the world is uninhabitable, nice there open off camera to admit these things shame they will not go on record!.

Can you provide the link to the conference video. Thanks

glennbuck

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #134 on: July 27, 2020, 01:45:38 AM »
Watched a conference video with Roger Hallam from Extinction Rebellion and he was talking to a Top Scientist at the IPCC recently off camera who said we would have a BOE by 2025! Another scientist said we would have 6 Celsius warming not 5 Celsius and at 4 Celsius half the world is uninhabitable, nice there open off camera to admit these things shame they will not go on record!.

Video is 22 minutes in for Roger Hallam .

Can you provide the link to the conference video. Thanks



« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 02:06:38 AM by glennbuck »

glennbuck

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #135 on: August 06, 2020, 12:08:02 AM »
Losing the remaining Arctic sea ice and its ability to reflect incoming solar energy back to space would be equivalent to adding one trillion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, on top of the 2.4 trillion tons emitted since the Industrial Age, according to current and former researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

At current rates, this roughly equates to 25 years of global CO2 emissions. It would consequently speed up the arrival of a global threshold of warming of 2ºC beyond temperatures the world experienced before the Industrial Revolution.  Scientists and analysts, including the authors of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report released in October 2018, have stated that the planet runs the risk of catastrophic damage ranging from more intense heat waves and coastal flooding to extinction of terrestrial species and threats to food supply if that threshold is passed.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/research-highlight-loss-arctics-reflective-sea-ice-will-advance-global-warming-25-years

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #136 on: August 06, 2020, 11:05:21 AM »
As it happens, only recently, inordinately high levels of methane emissions have been reported, to wit:

(1) Methane Observation – October 2019 -“This is the most powerful seep I have ever been able to observe… No one has ever recorded anything similar.” (Source: Research Vessel Encounters Giant Methane Seep in Arctic Waters, The Maritime Executive, Oct. 10, 2019) The quote is from Igor Semiletov, professor Tomsk Polytechnic University on the research vessel Academic M.A. Lavrentyev on a 40-day Arctic mission.

(2) Methane Observation – December 2019 – Three months later at COP25 in Madrid, Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, in an interview d/d December 10th, 2019, referenced an ongoing eruption of methane above Barrow, Alaska, saying: “We’ve never seen anything like it. And, it has stayed at elevated levels to the present week. Looking at the 2.2 million year ice core, the maximum methane concentration ever was 800 ppb. In Barrow, Alaska it is 2,050 ppb and staying there. It’s been up there for 4 months.”

A note about the Barrow observation – Dr. Peter Carter believes the origin may be permafrost decay from land. However, according to Dr. Wadhams, he’s not so sure of Carter’s explanation and even though the waters offshore Barrow are not known to contain subsea methane, it is theorized the 4-month extremely high CH4 reading may have originated at ESAS and drifted, a theory with forceful negative ramifications.

The Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory was established in 1973 by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Earth System Research Laboratory to track hourly methane readings.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/17/the-rumbling-methane-enigma/



Dr Peter Carter: summarising the lack of "climate emergency" at #COP25

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #137 on: August 26, 2020, 07:58:10 AM »
After a BOE occurs, how many years would it take for the agricultural industry to collapse?

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #138 on: August 26, 2020, 11:46:33 AM »
It will kick warming up a notch. And having no ice in summer might make for some really interesting changes in the atmospheric teleconnections.

No idea what the overall effects on agriculture will be. It must already be really hard to decide which trees/winegrape varieties to plant for the next decades.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #139 on: September 03, 2020, 12:58:53 AM »
Will the release of methane gas cause crops to fail?

If yes, how?

kassy

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #140 on: September 03, 2020, 02:13:06 PM »
Not directly.

But crop failure is a complicated thing. They can fail because it is too hot and too dry.
Or you have an excellent year ended by a month of rain at harvest time which will also ruin them.
And there are many more factors depending on the type of crop.

In the BOE context the ice loss will push global temperatures up at a faster rate then methane.



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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #141 on: September 03, 2020, 02:46:29 PM »
Not directly.

But crop failure is a complicated thing. They can fail because it is too hot and too dry.
Or you have an excellent year ended by a month of rain at harvest time which will also ruin them.
And there are many more factors depending on the type of crop.

In the BOE context the ice loss will push global temperatures up at a faster rate then methane.

Yes, it is much more complicated.  Each crop has its own ideal temperature and water requirements, not to mention other nutrient requirements.  To make a broad, sweeping statement about crop failures is rather difficult.

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #142 on: September 16, 2020, 06:15:54 PM »
Quote
One ice cube left = not a BOE
That is not how it is used in the scientific literature. There are a fair number of peer-reviewed articles on this very subject. They are primarily concerned with light energy reflected back into outer space, the loss of the Arctic as planetary refrigerator concept. This is a huge deal in itself, calculated below as a trillion tons of CO2 emission equivalent. (No one gives a hoot about local DMI 80N graphics.)

Radiative Heating of an Ice-Free Arctic Ocean
K Pistone I Eisenman V Ramanathan
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/efba/e15abb5f10ae821efdecbe6dcca113bb1e77.pdf

During recent decades, there has been dramatic Arctic sea ice retreat. This has reduced the top-of-atmosphere albedo, adding more solar energy to the climate system. There is substantial uncertainty regarding how much ice retreat and associated solar heating will occur in the future. This is relevant to future climate projections, including the timescale for reaching global warming stabilization targets.

Here we use satellite observations to estimate the amount of solar energy that would be added in the worst-case scenario of a complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice throughout the sunlit part of the year. Assuming constant cloudiness, we calculate a global radiative heating of 0.71 W/m2 relative to the 1979 baseline state. This is equivalent to the effect of one trillion tons of CO2 emissions. These results suggest that the additional heating due to complete Arctic sea ice loss would hasten global warming by an estimated 25 years.

It is perhaps better to use BOE 0.0, BOE 0.5, BOE 1.0, BOE 2.0, BOE 3.0 etc according to what you intend as no one has the authority or scientific justification to declare a definition, though BOE 1.0 has traction on forums even though it lacks any grounding in physics.

However any choice is ill-posed. The problem, as @zlabe put it earlier, is we are really talking about the area and latitudinal timing of open water albedo vs insolation calendar. In other words, the energy retention integral over the whole summer season is growing worse as more ice is lost earlier. This extra retained heat will be redistributed somewhere within the climate system, the very last thing it needs right now.

This year was very bad by late July because of early open water, early melt and fire soot in terms of fractional BOE (the fraction of how bad it could possibly get, assuming some middle-ground cloud model).

I posted two graphics earlier that explain how to calculate this with two clicks (without dipping into math); no one had any interest either way.

Next post will show various BOE areas as polar latitudinal caps, then reshape and reposition with the Gimp loop and histogram tools, keeping pixel count constant. This has to be done separately for each projection scale, eg SMOS, OsiSaf, AMSR2 etc.

The word event suggests wrongly a single point in time, ie a day in mid-Sept when albedo is irrelevant. BOE is really about the albedo part of the energy budget of the entire high latitude season, the major modeling imponderable being cloud properties, snow cover and weather temperature distribution.

The land permafrost albedo is another huge consideration very much affected by Arctic Amplification. A BLE (bare land event) interacts strongly so it is difficult to carve out just an Arctic Ocean BOE from observation of overall extra solar energy retention from loss of northern latitude albedo.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2020, 08:54:22 PM by A-Team »

A-Team

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #143 on: September 16, 2020, 09:37:06 PM »
Here I want to calculate a range of fractional BOE area values and display them over various common Arctic Ocean graphics in plausible areas and shapes for remnant ice. For example, what does two million sq km of ice look like up against the Canadian coast?

According to wikipedia, a polar cap area on a spherical earth (not quite our WGS84 ellipsoid) can be calculated by a simple formula given the radius of the earth and the latitude of the bottom of the cap. Having some target areas for BOE in mind, inverting the area formula will give the cap latitude yielding them.

The formula given is area = 2 pi r*r (1-cos (theta)) where theta is the polar angle included from the center of earth to the pole and to the bottom of the cap. This is not the latitude but rather its complement lat = 90-theta. Solving for theta for target area with the shorter polar radius of the earth taken as 6357 km amounts to finding a spreadsheet to provide the arccos function and convert radians to degrees:

90 - theta = 90- degrees(acos(1-(target area ÷ 2 *3.1416 * 6357 *6357)))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cap

target area   cap lat
 500000   86.40
1000000   84.91
1500000   83.77
2000000   82.80
2500000   81.95
3000000   81.18
3500000   80.48
4000000   79.82
4500000   79.20
5000000   78.61

These need to be checked against a daily NSIDC matching area during late melt season (eg four million sq km but Greenland Sea and CAA unwelcome minor contributions) because the polar stereographic projection is not equal area -- the pole region is off by 5-6%. However for simply visualizing what remnant ice would look like, it is good enough.

The outcome shows the 85º latitude is convenient for BOE 1.0 as it comes provided on products such as AMSR1_UHH. The 80th parallel is similarly appropriate to the four million BOE 4.0. Elsewhere, the radius for the circle tool centered on the pole can be figured after pixels/degree are calculated from parallels provided or from known land latitudes such as the Bering Strait at 65.89°.

After drawing the polar cap out to the chosen radius in an auxiliary layer and filling it, the pixel count should be noted in the histogram tool. This will vary depending on the scale of the underlying image resource, eg OsiSaf, AMSR2_large, Mercator Ocean etc etc.

Next, the move and loop tools in Gimp freeware can be used to move the cap area to another location and to another shape while holding the pixel count at the histogram constant. For example, the fractional BOE area might adjusted so its bottom uses the upper contours of the CAA islands.

Some examples in a bit. The final shape favored will vary from person to person for each fractional BOE as the 2012-2020 shapes of remnant ice vary quite a bit.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 02:22:02 PM by A-Team »

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #144 on: September 16, 2020, 10:13:24 PM »
After a BOE occurs, how many years would it take for the agricultural industry to collapse?

We might have a collapse of conventional agriculture even without a BOE. It might take a while, but the situation is so bad that we will be in a world of hurt within the lifetime of our grandchildren with or without a BOE.

I believe that by then we will have indoor, multilevel agriculture utilizing aeroponics. Indoor aeroponics uses 5% of the water that conventional agriculture does, so lack of reliable rainfall or lowering aquifer levels would not seriously impact it.
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A-Team

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #145 on: September 16, 2020, 10:40:59 PM »
It's worth a look at what climate scientists have recently published specifically on the topic of large scale open water gain and consequent albedo loss has during an early fractional BOE summer because the extra heat kicks in immediately adding to the earth's heat imbalance.

A truly comprehensive bibliography is beyond the scope of a post: thousands of papers going back decades on the overall impact of arctic amplification or sea ice loss on the global climate, for example J Francis et al 2009 on "20th and 21st century Arctic cloud amounts in global climate models". or JE Overland et al 2016 "Nonlinear response of mid-latitude weather to the changing Arctic".

The K Pistone 2019 paper mentioned above is directly on-topic: sunlight that formerly bounced off the reflective ice back into outer space is greatly diminished during a near-BOE summer due to the dramatically decreased albedo of open water, greatly enhancing retained solar heat.

This heat will be redistributed across the whole climate system affecting many processes but the paper focuses solely on how much less solar energy goes back out to space. This is readily measurable over the Arctic.

An earlier 2014 paper by these same authors appeared in PNAS along with some later back-and forth based on a misunderstanding of Arctic-specific top-of-the-atmosphere albedo vs globally averaged vs surface.

Observational determination of albedo decrease caused by vanishing Arctic sea ice
K Pistone  I Eisenman V Ramanathan
PNAS March 4, 2014 111 (9) 3322-3326;
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318201111 open access
128 cites

A thoughtful technical paper discussing the two Pistone papers in detail appeared as Donohoe 2020 (with a Piomas co-author). After developing alternatives to perceived shortcomings, the authors conclude with a lower but similarly shocking estimate of the sea ice albedo loss effect (10-19% vs 25%).

K Pistone has four new above-cloud aerosol papers in 2020 but nothing further yet on BOE albedo. I have not yet checked on the two co-authors.

he Effect of Atmospheric Transmissivity on Model and Observational Estimates of the Sea Ice Albedo Feedback
A Donohoe E Wrigglesworth A Schweiger Philip J. Rasch
J. Climate (2020) 33 (13): 5743–5765.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/13/5743/345297

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #146 on: September 17, 2020, 08:28:40 PM »
Nico Sun (aka Tealight) has produced some really good visuals on Albedo Warming Potential. (see links below).

The table and graph attached show how sea ice loss to date, especially in the 7 seas of the High Arctic,  has merely allowed a fraction of the AWP to be released compared with an ice-free Arctic.

The third graph shows that nevertheless increased AWP to date has the potential to significantly affect the incidence of ice-free days.

It was the work by Nico Sun & others and a comment by A-Team some time ago about the seas being in transition from icy deserts to open water that gave me the idea to show open water instead of ice in graphs The last graph is an example..

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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #147 on: September 17, 2020, 10:17:19 PM »
Is Central Arctic a combination of the blue seas or a separate entry?
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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #148 on: September 18, 2020, 07:14:58 AM »
Beautiful gerontocrat. That gives much information, thank you.
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Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event
« Reply #149 on: September 18, 2020, 10:45:24 AM »
Quote
Central Arctic?
That may refer to Region 11 of Masie map at NSIDC. These divisions are widely used but have no physical basis for basin boundaries and do not correlate well with ice age or thickness distributions.

Great to see Nico links and gerontocrat graphs; it's been a most excellent bottom-up effort. Earlier posts have said potential albedo doesn't take clouds into consideration. The Pistone papers are top-down, all about clouds, the satellites that observe them, and the sunlight coming in vs that decreasing portion lost to space under a growing fractional BOE trend and consequent greater adsorption, retention and redistribution of extra heat within the earth climate system.

With just scattered buoys and the occasional ship, given the rapidly changing cloud layers, phases  and fog we see all summer blocking WorldView and microwave observation of the surface, it's hard to convert potential into actual albedo without field observations and simplifying assumptions.

The evolving complexity over the summer of ice/snow surface reflectance/transmittance of incident sunlight and indeed measuring it over time but just over one sq km among millions has been a main focus of Mosaic and its buoys, towers, drones, balloons and aircraft as well as similar expeditions before it such as Sheba and N-ICE2015. These expeditions are funded because it is not yet feasible to calculate critical parameters ab initio or observe them from space.

Even open water varies a lot on its albedo according to capillary waves and sun angles. However the dramatic factor-of-ten difference between sea and ice albedos does allow estimation of the effect of an ever-encroaching fractional open water on the insolation season.

In terms of precipitation, wx-savvy posters sometimes differentiate rain vs snow using RAMMB. GFS/nullschool provides 3HPA, TPW and TCW channels for 3-hr accumulation, precipitable water in the air column, and total cloud water. Rain has a huge effect on albedo and its latent heat on snow/ice melt and thus on early attainment of open water so its future trend (and that of clouds under Arctic Amplification) is critical:

The impact of Arctic warming on increased rainfall
R Bintanja 2018
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34450-3

No one here has taken an interest in CERES which seems to be the satellite sensor scientists mainly use to characterize Arctic clouds and incoming storms. WorldView has recently added nine new cloud data layers; those too have not yet gotten a forum mention. Posts do frequently use the M3 13 11 (pink vie) on NOAA-20 VIIRS to see where clouds are not obscuring ice surface visibility.

The cloud layer is very complicated; it is not a binary topic of cloud vs not cloud or high vs low but many types and combinations with highly variable optical properties. Indeed when that Finnish firm Vaisala shared their lightening event database for the Central Arctic, it suggested far more convective thunderstorm weather occurs than anyone had imagined.

Interannual variations of Arctic cloud types in relation to sea ice
R Eastman 2009
https://atmos.uw.edu/~rmeast/ThesisSub.pdf

Cloud radiative forcing of the Arctic surface:
The influence of cloud properties, surface albedo, and solar zenith angle
MD Shupe JM Intrieri 2004    Sheba and later Mosaic co-leader
https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/17/3/616/30440/Cloud-Radiative-Forcing-of-the-Arctic-Surface-The

Given the difficult of just monitoring albedo over a single ongoing melt season, one can wonder just how accurately the Pistone and Donohoe papers above can calculate loss of Arctic refrigerator effect as the fraction of early open water continues to grow. Encouragingly they come out with quite similar numbers despite very different approaches.

The latter paper sees a slightly lower effect, calling it 'modest' whereas in fact it is still catastrophic as in the Pistone papers.

As with ESAS methane, nobody wants to hear about albedo, better to err on the side of least drama, hundreds of examples documented by AbruptSLR on that forum.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2020, 11:07:28 AM by A-Team »