Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind + Temp @ Surface
Thank you FG.
It looks like the CAA will be very warm throughout the forecast period. I wonder if the storm will manage to break some of the fast ice in the channels.
Yep, looking back (to 2013 because 2012 wasn't easily accessible), it looks like 2020 is going to have quite a bit more energy into it, at an earlier date, than we've seen. Starts hitting its stride more today. A little troubling, it's looked worse every day. Has there ever been any real structural damage to the CAA ice in June? I looked at the NASA and it didn't really seem like it. There's also been no other year where most of the ESS + Laptev coastal ice has melted/broken off in June.
The next 4 days (including this one), when remembering the melt season is iterative, look like they could be a major issue. The cyclone isn't situated in the middle of the Arctic, it's in the lower left (when looking at the map anyway, haha with NA on the bottom). The crack next to Severnaya, down through 80N, is going to get forced open, it's inevitable in the next couple days. The bodies of water (New Siberian Islands + Laptev), are going to go from holding hands to becoming one homogenous blob pretty soon anyway (just like marriage ha ha), but the winds over the next 4 days are going to drag and expand them. Atlantic gets pummeled some more.
To add insult to injury, a high pressure system forms in the Greenland Sea, going "against the grain" of the Greenland ice, with winds also getting sucked into the cyclone. That starts in about 24 hours or so, lasts for days.
This pack is also going to move. And this all happens while the ESS and Laptev get cooked, and the CAA is turning up the heat. Greenland's entire perimeter gets warm, including to the north, I'm guessing there's a big melt event projected there. Depending on how long this cyclone goes on for, the Greenland ice relevant to the Arctic could get interesting. Curious about possible CAB transfer too, the pack is a lot more mobile than usual years. And the small things, like the ESS movement, Atlantic movement, even budging the Chukchi ice block down some would accelerate melt from surface area exposure.
That's one thing that's going to be important this season, surface area exposure to water. And developments such as basin ambient temp, considering Eurasia looks like it'll essentially be open water with equitably distributed heat (opposed to one big "bite"), and encapsulated in an inferno. Some interesting branches off that, air column and rain over periphery of ice, wind effects, even baroclinity and the weather/storm formation.
But, keep an eye out (everyone, not just you oren
) for the expansion of the pools of water in the Laptev + the Savernaya crack. It's just June 17, last thing we friggin' need is essentially a bunch of open water at 80N on July 1.