The 2020 melting season

[gandul]

2020 is still lagging 2019 in surface melting but it must be said last year brutal heat had started earlier.
This comparison should be done in a week. We'll see if/how 2020 keeps pace.
PS. The SMOS map does NOT reflect thickness in Summer, it is very sensitive to surface melting, it is good to quantify extent of wet surface vs extent of dry surface (orange pixels)

[Paul]

Whilst it looks like this dipole will break down, I'm still not too convinced the ESS will be out of the woods in terms of the heat, I would not be surprised if that intense heat means any breakdown of that heat does not happen at all. That said, a reverse dipole is starting to look increasingly likely.

Before all that, warm winds blowing across the basin, there is some slight lower pressure in the flow to begin with but in around a day or two, the winds really pick up, be interesting how the ice reacts to this especially in the ESS.

[oren]

Melt ponds have appeared in the CAA in the past few days, especially in the south (left side of the animation). The breakup in Prince Regent Inlet can be seen at the bottom. CLICK to animate.

[pearscot]

Wow that was a dramatic change in such a short period of time.

Basically to your point and what mirror's that gif: that does not look unique to just that region. The Hudson Bay, East Siberian, Laptev ,Beaufort, Chukchi Seas all have a similar appearance right now, especially along their coasts. It's unique from what I've seen in prior years in terms of cross-basis analogous melting.

[Aluminium]

June 10-14.

2019.

[Phoenix]

June 10-14.

At this point it seems like a foregone conclusion that the Laptev, Kara and Barents Seas are all destined for a complete melt out this season and the mystery is about how far into the CAB will those losses extend. Prognosis for most of ESS looks pretty bad too, but I see possibility for something at the minimum in the north adjacent to the Chukchi.

Wind can always push some ice to these seas at the minimum so I refer just to the ice that is currently residing there.

Anyone see it differently?

[PragmaticAntithesis]

JAXA ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT:  10,093,549 KM2 as at 14-Jun-2020

- Extent loss on this day 49k, 9 k less than the average loss on this day (of the last 10 years) of 58k,
- Extent is  39 k MORE than 2016,
______________________________
Yet another below average extent loss.

Come on 2016, you can do it! Deny 2020 the record days!

[marcel_g]

The 12z models and 00z EURO the 12z euro isn't out yet have backed off considerably with the dipole in the long range.

Instead of setting up a full or 3/4 dipole the models slide the Eurasian vortex over the pole/Atlantic side and merge it with the GIS vortex which won't budge.

This keeps the torching over the Pacific half.

It's not a good pattern by any means but it definitely is much better than the entire CAB getting the roast.

This kind of thing is what will keep 2020 from passing 2012 in the end.

We'll see

Yep, we've seen this time and again in the last 8-9 years. It's a pattern and I think part of the reason for this strong +PV tendency has been due to a marked increase in low-level baroclinicity and eddy kinetic energy as the mid-high lats warm faster in summer than the basin proper. It is providing a transient negative feedback by preferentially favoring storms over the basin during the summer months (on the cold side of the jet). This retards melt and slows down the year-to-year summer progression. Of course, eventually the warming signal will overwhelm this, but it may take another 20 years to do so (the occasional year like 2016 nonwithstanding). Eventually, increasing warming over land will cause the warm conveyor belts on these storms to start doing enough damage to offset the shielding effect and destroy ice cover anyways. We may end up seeing a fairly long period of not much change -- followed by a quick transient period to sea-ice free, followed by decoupling of the troposphere from the stratosphere in the autumn and subsequent large hits to winter ice volume recoveries. Nakamura et. al's BoE experiments suggested as such a few years back.

And I suspect 2007 and whatever future year(s) this happens will be seen as the turning points.

If you're looking for ocean-driven signals as well, simply look at the trend of shoaling along the Atlantic-inflow stream and heat content storage coming from the Chukchi. They're pointing to the 2040s as well. Incidentally, this is around the same time aragonite undersaturation in the Arctic begins to show up, too (aragonite undersaturation starts in the 2030s around Antarctica). Full-on ecosystem disruption seems pretty ripe around that time.

Very interesting and well articulated. I was just wondering if something like this was going to become a melting season pattern. Maybe we might avoid a full BOE before 2030 if such a pattern holds?

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind + Temp @ Surface

[Phoenix]

The heat has come to the N.Canada and the adjacent CAA and it will sticking around for a while.

https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx_frames/gfs/ds/gfs_arc-lea_t2anom_10-day.png

[Ktb]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind + Temp @ Surface

The surface air temp in northern Russia is going to hit 30+ C. Literally bordering the arctic ocean.

[Freegrass]

The surface air temp in northern Russia is going to hit 30+ C. Literally bordering the arctic ocean.

Some time ago I said that the ESS was near the coldest part of Siberia. Seems like I may have been wrong about that.    It looks more like a summer holiday destination now...

[Aluminium]

Chokurdakh reached +27.4°С and had a dry thunderstorm today.

Station Cape Chelyuskin has 2 cm of snow. There was 30 cm in 2019.

[SimonF92]

There have been relentless spring-summer-fall anomalies there for a long time. I suspect this year will be the worst too

[gandul]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind + Temp @ Surface

That's very very.warm on the Pacific half for the next five days. There are hundreds of miles of air intrusions with temps above ice surface showing a few degrees over zero. Short, but we should see strong effect on surface

[gandul]

SMOS beige pixels already tanking. Expect non stop for a week more.
Later than 2019 and 2012 though.

Just like last year, I will be running a pixel counting algorithm on the SMOS images.  The beige pixel counting graph will be updated daily:



https://www.dropbox.com/s/fl2xs6aeop3ioen/SMOS_beige_pixels.png

[igs]

The surface air temp in northern Russia is going to hit 30+ C. Literally bordering the arctic ocean.

Some time ago I said that the ESS was near the coldest part of Siberia. Seems like I may have been wrong about that.    It looks more like a summer holiday destination now...

Sibiria has always been hot in summer and cold in winter. Temps up to 45C are not uncommon while Sibiria is large of course. The Part bordering the arctic ocean got definitely warmer over the years and is not the part that is meant with the extreme summer heat events I mentioned.


Nevertheless, Sibirie is one of the regions with largest temperature range from around -50 up to almost +50 (numbers are not verified for 100% accurracy, only roughly  mentioned to make the point.)

[jens]

Wrangel Island is going to have temperatures up to +20C. Really this is ridiculous. Makes you wonder, in which climate zones are these places located, lol.

[Paul]

SMOS beige pixels already tanking. Expect non stop for a week more.
Later than 2019 and 2012 though.

Just like last year, I will be running a pixel counting algorithm on the SMOS images.  The beige pixel counting graph will be updated daily:



https://www.dropbox.com/s/fl2xs6aeop3ioen/SMOS_beige_pixels.png

What makes you think that? The weather is set to turn cooler and cloudier across large parts of the basin in the coming days.

Of course as usual with the Arctic, there is always a catch and its that heatdome across Siberia, hints are maybe this heat won't break down across the ESS andd this area and perhaps eventually the Laptev won't cool down at all with temperatures horribly above average. That is the question from the outputs at the moment, just how much heat is going to remain over the ESS and will that heat reenter the basin.

Of course in most years, the ESS has nice compacted thick fast ice, there's very little of that this year so the ice really can't get away with having too much warmth.

[gandul]

It’s pretty mixed, with the next five days being pretty brutal for half the Arctic.
Then there’s that ridge over Laptev/ESS which keeps strong even with the centered vortex.

The way out +10 days is unpredictable, GFS and even EC showing outcome not really that cold... but that’s too blurry.

[Rod]

It must be getting warm in Utqiagvik, someone broke out the grill! I have been watching that webcam for a long time, and I have never seen them have a BBQ. 

I wonder what they are cooking 🤔

[Wildcatter]

I'm back. Took some time to go out to my farm, only checking the ice + emails (you'd be amazing at what clients can burn down given free reign). *crickets* Ha.

The 5-day looks pretty bad. I never look at the longer range models, but I decided to glance at it. If the Euro shapes up, that's going to be atrocious. And the heat in CAA starts to ramp up over the next few days, landmass behind starts to get hot too.

It's night-time here, but I'm going to start posting daily updates tomorrow, simply because this June looks like it's going to be one to remember. Things are going to get weird this season, and it's going to take a pretty nasty turn here shortly.

[sofistek]

Sibiria has always been hot in summer and cold in winter. Temps up to 45C are not uncommon

Really? Is there a reliable data series for max temps in Siberia? I've only managed to find anecdotal evidence but anything over 30C seems to be known but certainly uncommon and I haven't yet seen any references to temps over 40C (and not even 40C).

[jdallen]

Sibiria has always been hot in summer and cold in winter. Temps up to 45C are not uncommon

Really? Is there a reliable data series for max temps in Siberia? I've only managed to find anecdotal evidence but anything over 30C seems to be known but certainly uncommon and I haven't yet seen any references to temps over 40C (and not even 40C).

I was gonna say, but you beat me to the question.  Yes, references for those temperatures north of 65 degrees of latitude would be requested for validation.

[oren]

According to the website pogodaiklimat, Tiksi (Lat 71.58 on the Laptev shore) highest temp was a respectable 34.3C on July 7th 1991. Pevek (Lat 69.70 on the ESS shore) hit 33C on July 8th 1962.
Warmer temps would be found more inland, but these would be less relevant to the Arctic sea ice and are better discussed elsewhere. Note record max temp in Russia was 45.4C on July 12th 2010 in Utta (in the south).

http://www.pogodaiklimat.ru/monitor.php?id=21824&month=7&year=2019
http://www.pogodaiklimat.ru/monitor.php?id=25051&month=7&year=2020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Russia

[grixm]

More fast ice breakup today. In the Laptev sea near the Lena river delta, and in the western ESS.

[El Cid]

Sibiria has always been hot in summer and cold in winter. Temps up to 45C are not uncommon

Really?

No. This is absolutely NOT TRUE. We have data for many Siberian towns. Some all time highs are for the biggest towns (plusYakutsk and Norilsk as these are far from the most populated centers but typical for Inner/Northern Siberia):

Novosibirsk 37 C
Omsk 40 C
Chelyabinsk 40 C
Krasnoyarsk 36 C
Tyumen 38 C
Irkutsk 37 C
Yakutsk 38 C
Norilsk 32 C

[ArcticMelt2]

More fast ice breakup today. In the Laptev sea near the Lena river delta, and in the western ESS.

Possible all the fast ice in the area of the New Siberia Islands has cracked. This is evidenced by the microwave image. Does anyone have radar images of this area?

[ArcticMelt2]

There have been relentless spring-summer-fall anomalies there for a long time. I suspect this year will be the worst too

GISS confirms this.

[Freegrass]

So who's going to the Costa del Pole this year?

[JayW]

More fast ice breakup today. In the Laptev sea near the Lena river delta, and in the western ESS.

Possible all the fast ice in the area of the New Siberia Islands has cracked. This is evidenced by the microwave image. Does anyone have radar images of this area?

Snowmelt RGB from RAMMB shows the ice largely intact as of a few hours ago, but that it's likely covered in water from rain and melt. Some cracks can be seen at bottom (west).

[gerontocrat]

Up in the very far north of Canada, including over much of the CAA, it's got really warm, especially by late afternoon. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is dropping like a stone. Any signs of snowmelt run-off into the channels of the CAA?

[Phoenix]

Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is dropping like a stone.

In 3-4 months, that's going to show up when NASA releases their sea level rise numbers.

[Aluminium]

Wildfires after hot weather and thunderstorms near the ESS. +29.0°С was in Chokurdakh.

[ArcticMelt2]

More fast ice breakup today. In the Laptev sea near the Lena river delta, and in the western ESS.

Possible all the fast ice in the area of the New Siberia Islands has cracked. This is evidenced by the microwave image. Does anyone have radar images of this area?

Snowmelt RGB from RAMMB shows the ice largely intact as of a few hours ago, but that it's likely covered in water from rain and melt. Some cracks can be seen at bottom (west).

Recent radar images do not confirm the total collapse of fast ice.

http://www.aari.ru/resources/d0015/arctic/gif.en/2020/20200616.gif

[Freegrass]

This looks like serious melting in the Chukchi sea. Ocean temperatures have been going up there.

Nullschool Ocean Temp Anomaly

[be cause]

the breakup of the ice covering Chaunskaya bay , the inlet next Pevek , 69N,169E , is a few days early compared to 2019. The area inland joins the entire North of Siberia beyond the ESS , Laptev coast in becoming sub-tropical over the next week with night time temps not falling below 20'C .  N. Canada joins in in the forecast below .. GFS 132 hours out ..

https://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2020061612/gfsnh-9-132.png?12

 the extent of sub-tropical climate within the Arctic is an aspect of some import as it's extension is one eventual outcome of the game humanity is playing with it's home atm . b.c.

[pearscot]

I appreciate everyone's responses these last few pages. I don't really know what to say, but for the most part I agree with everyone's assessments and points.

The heat over the CAA has really been remarkable as of late. The only words that really came to mind when I made this was: Oh what a difference 2 days can make. Nonetheless, all of this alludes to what I said earlier in terms of a 'flash-point' in terms of melting. It seems like SO much of the entire region just continues to melt, thin, and have more melt ponds on an almost universal level. It seems like there could potentially be some huge loses going into July if the overall arctic clarity and relative heat continues. Just look at any and all water bordering the ice right now; I think this also speaks to what is unfolding in the system at large.

I wish I knew more about how the last month will precondition the ice, but given what others have posted in terms of breakup - this is more than likely unfolding almost everywhere with the blue hue of the ice existing almost basin wide along all coasts.

[Milwen]

Siberian heatwave?

[igs]

Sibiria has always been hot in summer and cold in winter. Temps up to 45C are not uncommon

Really? Is there a reliable data series for max temps in Siberia? I've only managed to find anecdotal evidence but anything over 30C seems to be known but certainly uncommon and I haven't yet seen any references to temps over 40C (and not even 40C).

I was gonna say, but you beat me to the question.  Yes, references for those temperatures north of 65 degrees of latitude would be requested for validation.

I never said north of 65° I even mentioned that it's a rough call since Sibiria is stretching over several thousand kilometers east to west as well as south to north.


So if you read my post carefully you can't just assume (jump to conclusion) that I'm talking about 65N and up because in fact i mentioned that I'm not.


Further the replies are not really surprising, in fact it's quite common to pick on a value or a word to discredit the entire post and it's meaning.


enjoy further


A quick search came up with this for the rest search yourself, there is way more and this is not the hotest in Sibliria it's just the hottest in a specific town.


QUOTE
The highest recorded temperature in Verkhoyansk is 37 °C (99 °F), so the difference between the two records exceeds 100 degrees Celsius! In the past decades, when the climate was colder, in this area of eastern Siberia, the average temperature in January was below -50 °C (-58 °F).
END QUOTE

[Freegrass]

The only words that really came to mind when I made this was: Oh what a difference 2 days can make.

Thanks Pearscot. Now I'm stuck with Esther Phillips in my head again... 
I was already on REM; It's the end of the world as we know it... 

[pearscot]

The only words that really came to mind when I made this was: Oh what a difference 2 days can make.

Thanks Pearscot. Now I'm stuck with Esther Phillips in my head again... 
I was already on REM; It's the end of the world as we know it... 

Ha, all good songs! I personally also love Losing my Religion...now if only they could update the lyrics to Losing my Albedo!

Edit: That's me in the Beaufort
That's me in the Sea
Losing my albedo
Trying to keep fast-ice anew
And I don't know if the climate can do it
Oh no, I've seen too much
I haven't conserved enough...

I also did have to laugh at Rod's post for being unintentionally funny. I've never in my life seen people fire up the grill and have a cookout in Barrow (IN JUNE, too). Once again, it looks really warm there and I'm also amazed the fast ice is still somehow attached to the coast. It can't be more than a mile wide.

[igs]

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1866&bih=1017&ei=9BDpXqP_OpS9lwTBwpzQDw&q=hottest+ever+measured+temperature+sibira&oq=hottest+ever+measured+temperature+sibira&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIHCCEQChCgATIHCCEQChCgAToECAAQRzoCCAA6BAgAEEM6BQgAEJECOgYIABAKEEM6BggAEBYQHjoFCCEQoAE6CAgAEAgQDRAeOggIIRAWEB0QHlDdoxdY2PAXYKWAGGgCcAN4AIABtAGIAZgmkgEEMS4zOZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwijyff3_IbqAhWU3oUKHUEhB_oQ4dUDCAw&uact=5


Since I said it's a rough estimate the 1.8C off is ok for me, if it's not for you so what, the point was that Sibiria is a very hot place in summer, far hotter than most people think and to say so it does really not matter wether it's 41, 44 or 46C, even 38C would do to support the point.


This temps are 2m above ground in the shadow as usual, hence it's obvious that a person on the ground or with a car thermometer that is not perfectly calibrated easily gets a read of >43.2C and then considering that there are so few measurement points compared to the vast extent we can easily assume that this is the highest measured but not the highest real, hence again, i think talking about temps up to 45C in Sibiria is justified.


Even though i know that there are many nitpickers here i refuse to spend more time than necessary to find proof for something that is in a healty range of the truth as well as common knowledge.


If that common knowledge is not so common for some, well, i'm not a teacher, i just post my points on a matter.


Even though it does not matter here, my wife is from Novosibirsk and later St. Petersburg and i had my fair share of that heat + mosquitos over a longer period when our kids were small.

[gerontocrat]

It seems like SO much of the entire region just continues to melt, thin, and have more melt ponds on an almost universal level. It seems like there could potentially be some huge loses going into July if the overall arctic clarity and relative heat continues. Just look at any and all water bordering the ice right now; I think this also speaks to what is unfolding in the system at large.

I like the NSIDC sea ice concentration image. Because it is so less detailed than the images from Bremen I get from it a much clearer overview of where in the Arctic the ice looks in trouble.

And the image attached seems to suggest trouble all over the place.

https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_concentration_hires.png

[pearscot]

It seems like SO much of the entire region just continues to melt, thin, and have more melt ponds on an almost universal level. It seems like there could potentially be some huge loses going into July if the overall arctic clarity and relative heat continues. Just look at any and all water bordering the ice right now; I think this also speaks to what is unfolding in the system at large.

I like the NSIDC sea ice concentration image. Because it is so less detailed than the images from Bremen I get from it a much clearer overview of where in the Arctic the ice looks in trouble.

https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_concentration_hires.png

Thanks for posting that...that's what I was seeing too. Despite 2020 being behind certain regions compared to 2019, this year has sure done everything it can to catch up. Plus, even compared to last year, the ice looks less white and far smaller flows overall.

I made this hella poorly made collage of all the peripheral areas to illustrate both of what we cited. I tried to leave the labels on so people know where they are, but all the images are from yesterday or the 13th. 

And the image attached seems to suggest trouble all over the place.

[Stephan]

My feeling as a layperson is that we are somewhere close before a cliff. I expect several century decreases in extent and in area in the next days. We had a kind of a lag the last week, lower / at average losses, and they will catch up again. (Almost) everywhere you look the ice appears as being very vulnerable, especially at lower latitudes and along most of the Siberian coastline from the archipelago of Severnaya Semlya to Wrangel Island.

[oren]

Browsing Worldview over the Chukchi, Beaufort and associated CAB, I am struck by the relative lack of clouds during this peak insolation period. Admittedly I have not compared to other years. CLICK to animate and watch the clear skies as the ice albedo drops to a very dirty gray. Click again to zoom in. The promised storm will hopefully bring clouds with it, but lots of damage has been done already.
Warning: the animation is huge, covering 3 weeks and more than 1 million km², I have optimized it heavily but it's still 8+ MB.

[Viggy]

So if you read my post carefully you can't just assume (jump to conclusion) that I'm talking about 65N and up because in fact i mentioned that I'm not.


Further the replies are not really surprising, in fact it's quite common to pick on a value or a word to discredit the entire post and it's meaning.

Its really weird to attack the people asking for proof for what would seem to be an outlandish claim. You claimed 45C is not uncommon in Siberia. Per the link in your own 2nd post, Oymyakon has a record high temperature of 34.6C

Even if the highest recorded temperature in Siberia was 40C, claiming it is not uncommon, means that it is common. A record, by definition, is not a common event.

Present data, back it up with references. Attacking the people asking for clarification while rambling on about car temps and the size of mosquitoes in your wife's city is completely pointless.

[jdallen]

Since I said it's a rough estimate the 1.8C off is ok for me, if it's not for you so what, the point was that Sibiria is a very hot place in summer, far hotter than most people think and to say so it does really not matter wether it's 41, 44 or 46C, even 38C would do to support the point.
<snippage>
Even though i know that there are many nitpickers here i refuse to spend more time than necessary to find proof for something that is in a healty range of the truth as well as common knowledge.
<more snippage>

igs - I'm sorry if you feel singled out. 

I think the thing people may have been reacting to more than anything else is lack of context.

You put up a number without context.  You have since provided some - a single value posted in Wikipedia - to justify your claim of near 45C temperatures.  But even then it still lacks context, as far and away more of Siberia lies away from the Arctic than near it.  We have no reference for the location of that number, and it's relative importance to local climate.

The point we are making, and which seemed to be missed, is that the *context* of the current very high temperature anomalies in Siberia, in the Arctic, are really without precedent, either in scale or duration.  That was the reason why I specified 65N and higher latitude as a qualifier.

Siberia gets hot, I completely agree.  But getting as hot at it is along the Arctic coast is unusual - *highly* unusual, and that is particularly dangerous for the ice.

(Edit:  It is in fact dangerous for the tundra and entire Arctic biome, but that is a discussion for another thread)

[be cause]

https://twitter.com/R34lB0rg/status/1272843545293045760/photo/1

seems I'm not alone in watching the warmth . 36'C + forecast in large parts of the Siberian Arctic this week in the gefs ensembles  . It matters little if there is some cooler air over the central basin if all around there is peripheral melt (of the central seas) and absurdly high temps . b.c.