The 2020 melting season

[glennbuck]

From Severnaya Zemlya all the way down to Svalbard today, where this will go towards the North Pole the next few weeks, will be unprecedented probably. High winds from Franz Josef Land on the 6th moving into the CAB on the 7th.

[glennbuck]

Zack Labe
@ZLabe

#Arctic air temperature rank by month over the satellite era - 2020 is the highest August on record in this analysis

+ Ranks: 1=warmest (red), 41/42=coldest (blue)
+ Download visual:

2019 and 2020 blow away any other years records for April to August air temps since 1979, AGW?

The El Nino 2016 had records for Autumn and Winter temps but not Spring and Summer, if temperatures had not been so cool in summer 2016 probably would of been below 2012 extent.

Similar if temperatures had not been so cool Jan- March 2020 we would probably be below 2012 now.

[Paul]

The extended models are beginning to show the most impressive GAAC of the season forming. By D8, the EURO has a mega-ridge over most of the Arctic, while a tropospheric polar vortex is down in Illinois. The Arctic this autumn appears to be very unable to retain polar airmasses and is leaking them into North America into particular.



Modeling is also becoming more consistent on a major LP event in the D3 range.



CMC on potential GAAC....!



The seasonal trend for these events has been for them to become way more impressive as we approach D0, so we shall see what happens.

Whilst details will change, there is no doubt whatsoever Siberia and Siberian ice regions are going to remain WELL above average. Real danger for the ice that heat will transfer to the cooler Beaufort and yet again the whole basin is ridiculasly above average for September.

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind + Temp @ Surface
Large GiF!

[Aluminium]

August 31 - September 4.

2019.

[binntho]

August 31 - September 4.

2019.

Atlantic side well past 85N, the Beaufort claw rapidly disappearing, and no visible signs of an end to the melting season.

[jdallen]

The extended models are beginning to show the most impressive GAAC of the season forming.
CMC on potential GAAC....!
<snip>

<snip>

<snip> Real danger for the ice that heat will transfer to the cooler Beaufort and yet again the whole basin is ridiculously above average for September.

Actually, the real danger is... Dipole.

That's what the models are hinting at (but is far from certain), from what I see in the un-snipped image I left.

At this stage, even "blistering" heat isn't going to advect enough heat to seriously affect the pack.  That's going to have to come from the ocean.

A strong dipole down the Atlantic front and back towards the ESS across the pack could disrupt it, cause compaction and damage, pulling more heat up from depth and continuing bottom melt by providing a source of heat greater than the out-going heat loss.

If it were not for the wind, at this stage of the season, a strong high pressure system would be a godsend as it could bring clear skies and nothing to impede outgoing heat.

We will have to see how things play out.

[Rodius]

It is looking more likely that the refreeze is going to be another slow start..... the heat simply isn't leaving.

[gandul]

August 31 - September 4.

2019.

The beaufort sea ice has suffered strong winds and choppy seas during this week and losses have accelerated again. Quieter time ahead.
The Atlantic front has one or two of bad days ahead yet, but then the tendency of compacting will reverse very quickly.

What happens after 5 days: throw a coin. A minimum this weekend or early next week is guaranteed. Is it THE minimum? If it stays so for the next week, based on previous years dates, yes.

[Iain]

I don't think Charctic is updating. It usually refreshes early PM BST, but this morning it's still stuck on Sept 3rd.

Jaxa is still down too.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Uni Bremen site also appears to be down, so no sea ice updates from me until that issue is resolved.

Meanwhile, ECM has the storm arriving at 48 hours, peaking at 72.

EDIT: Bremen site is back!

[BornFromTheVoid]

Today's images and animation. Surprisingly, very little northward movement on the Atlantic side compared to recent days.
(Larger versions of the animation, as always, on the twitter page)

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast + Last 24H
Wind @ Surface
Wind + Temp @ 850hPa
Large GiFS!

Multiyear ice extinction event?

[Lord M Vader]

NSIDC per 9/4: 4,003 Mn km². Maybe we'll go below 4 Mn by tomorrow.... In any case, the 2020 minimum is a guaranteed second lowest.

[glennbuck]

NSIDC per 9/4: 4,003 Mn km². Maybe we'll go below 4 Mn by tomorrow.... In any case, the 2020 minimum is a guaranteed second lowest.

The daily extent already is 3,819,454 million km^2

[Burnrate]

NSIDC per 9/4: 4,003 Mn km². Maybe we'll go below 4 Mn by tomorrow.... In any case, the 2020 minimum is a guaranteed second lowest.

The last four days of the 5 day daily change have been significantly more than any other year (71, 80, 85, 81) with the total loss from those 4 days double or triple most other years.  Another 12 days (12 days until the minimum date of 2012) with 5 day daily losses above 51 will bring us below 2012.  That will happen if the average daily extent losses for those 12 days are at least 43 which I think is more than double than any other year, but the losses so far are double and triple most other years.

How much longer can the melt keep up and what will that low do on Monday?  Will the minimum happen later and how much later?

[oren]

The low should bring loss of area at the cost of dispersion and increased extent in the CAB. Personally I find area to be the more important metric, and I wonder if the 2016 and 2012 minima can be passed. But with enough area loss CAB extent could suffer too, and in addition the Beaufort, the CAA and the Greenland Sea could lose their extra extent in the meantime. So we may have an early extent minimum or a late one. Stay tuned.

[Greenbelt]

Surprisingly, very little northward movement on the Atlantic side compared to recent days.

From the forecasts, it looks most of the northerly winds will be from the Laptev area in the next several days. Here is Day 0 ECMWF. By Day 2 as the Atlantic storm moves in and strengthens, the northerly winds could be very strong in that direction.

[Iain]

Chartic is back:

[BornFromTheVoid]

Projecting forward from the 4th, if we follow the 2010 melt rate we will get down to just 122k above the 2012 minimum...

[be cause]

  .. and if we follow the 2020 melt rate ....

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind @ Surface + Total Precipitable Water
Large GiF!

GFS = Gloriously Failing Simulations

[UCMiami]

There seems to be some small calving events occurring along the western edge of Greenland into the Kane Basin: move forward through the first days of Sept on the attached WV link - two separate events from Sept 1 - Sept 4.

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-427278.5554078848,-1091208.0751046427,-298638.5554078848,-1020232.0751046427&p=arctic&t=2020-09-01-T18%3A53%3A46Z&l=Graticule,Reference_Labels,Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands721,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands367(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor

Also the northern end of that glacier is breaking up - not sure if that is already consider sea ice, or if some of that is calving as well.

[gandul]

The low should bring loss of area at the cost of dispersion and increased extent in the CAB. Personally I find area to be the more important metric, and I wonder if the 2016 and 2012 minima can be passed. But with enough area loss CAB extent could suffer too, and in addition the Beaufort, the CAA and the Greenland Sea could lose their extra extent in the meantime. So we may have an early extent minimum or a late one. Stay tuned.

Right. And I am amazed at the pace of melting of the Beaufort sea too, looking at BFTV maps i believe the long-fetched easterlies have really stirred the degraded ice that was there these past dats. I wonder if it will keep going, then there could be a minimum area below 2012.

[Greenbelt]

The low should bring loss of area at the cost of dispersion and increased extent in the CAB. Personally I find area to be the more important metric, and I wonder if the 2016 and 2012 minima can be passed. But with enough area loss CAB extent could suffer too, and in addition the Beaufort, the CAA and the Greenland Sea could lose their extra extent in the meantime. So we may have an early extent minimum or a late one. Stay tuned.

Regardless of the weather, which I can't hope to understand or predict, I would expect a later-than-average end to melting season simply because there was so much solar energy added in July.

[Burnrate]

In my curiosity of when the minimum might be, and if it might be later, I did a simple linear regression of the NSIDC 5 Day Extent numbers.

It showed a trend towards the minimum occurring later in the year BUT it appears to be mostly driven by there being less early minimums than there being any later minimums.  The lack of insolation seems to put a pretty firm cap on how late the minimum can be.

I would hazard to guess this will remain true until a BOE occurs.  Also, given a standard deviation of almost 5 days this doesn't help much at all (ugh, weather ).

[KenB]

In my curiosity of when the minimum might be, and if it might be later, I did a simple linear regression of the NSIDC 5 Day Extent numbers.

It showed a trend towards the minimum occurring later in the year BUT it appears to be mostly driven by there being less early minimums than there being any later minimums.  The lack of insolation seems to put a pretty firm cap on how late the minimum can be.

I would hazard to guess this will remain true until a BOE occurs.  Also, given a standard deviation of almost 5 days this doesn't help much at all (ugh, weather ).

See also this thread: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3183.0.html

[Glen Koehler]

In my curiosity of when the minimum might be, and if it might be later, I did a simple linear regression of the NSIDC 5 Day Extent numbers.

It showed a trend towards the minimum occurring later in the year BUT it appears to be mostly driven by there being less early minimums than there being any later minimums.  The lack of insolation seems to put a pretty firm cap on how late the minimum can be.

I would hazard to guess this will remain true until a BOE occurs.  Also, given a standard deviation of almost 5 days this doesn't help much at all (ugh, weather ).

    Thanks for doing that Burnrate.  While the variability in the minimum date trend does not allow a precise prediction, it does  suggest that with high solar insolation this summer and thus melt momentum, the presumed date for minimum of September 16 (Julian day 259) has a good chance of being delayed by 1-6 days to Julian day 260-264 (Sept. 16-20).  If so that would might narrow the shortfall from the 2012 minimum records, though those extra days would be in the flattening part of the curve(s) for each metric and the gaps to 2012 appear to be too large for any of the 2020 values to go below 2012. 

    Even without new record(s), it is remarkable enough that 2020 is close to matching 2012 given the lack of a once-in-century intensity August storm like 2012 had.  Granted, 2020 had it's own unusally strong melt conditions.  The trend seems to be that about 10 years of global warming progression will be enough to make what were freakishly low minima in 2012 the annual norm (and continuing to head downward) by 2020-2022.

    And while 2020 probably won't go below 2012 for any of the standard metrics (Volume, Area, Thickness, Extent), a less quantitative assessment indicates that the Arctic sea ice has never been in a more vulnerable state.  The shift of the center of mass of the pack to the south and west from the CAA-Greenland-North Pole triangle towards the CAA is not an encouraging sign for longevity.  Then again, that shift may be "corrected" over the winter freeze season.     

[VeliAlbertKallio]

I see the general trend being Arctic Ocean's open periphery warming sea open for longer, then when cooling it releases moisture that transports latent heat in the form of rain and snowfall to the High Arctic. The early autumns become balmy, but the mid-winter to early spring becomes bitterly cold. The reason for above is the loss of heat transfer as sources of open ocean freeze over, the supply of peripheral ocean lake-snow latent heat transfer effect (Maurice Ewing - William Donn Lake Snow Effect [E-D] of the Arctic Ocean) runs out of steam. The Central Arctic sea ice now being insulated by ever thickening winter snow blankets push the thinner and more insulated ice floes to sit deeper in the ocean, this inhibits their thickening. On the periphery, the improved insulation of the Central Arctic Ocean has a significant later winter cooling effect, which then helps thin ice cover to spread out to cause increasing sea ice area of very thin ice. (A harbinger of this may have appeared this winter, 2019-2020, with its higher sea ice area and mid winter coldness.) The E-D effect may be either area neutral, or area growth positive, overall effect being more fragile ice that is well insulated by thick snow. Thus overall the sea ice areas would become much more variable at the very end of Arctic Sea Ice. Then the cliff edge falls very fast and the ocean flips to increasingly stormy blue ocean which tries, but cannot properly reform sea ice, most likely the Central Arctic pumping heat now inversely to the ocean's periphery. New very volatile and fragile ice shelves can then easily form on the north Canadian coast from extreme pack ice and extreme volumes of Ewing-Donn lake snow effect 500-700mm precipitation. Unlike their pre-Milutin Milanković Ewing-Donne theory of 1950's, the warmed permafrost still remains capable to melt away land snow pile-up from winter-time E-D lake snow effect; spring floods then kicking the new seasons earlier with transport of more warm water in rivers.

In my curiosity of when the minimum might be, and if it might be later, I did a simple linear regression of the NSIDC 5 Day Extent numbers.

It showed a trend towards the minimum occurring later in the year BUT it appears to be mostly driven by there being less early minimums than there being any later minimums.  The lack of insolation seems to put a pretty firm cap on how late the minimum can be. I would hazard to guess this will remain true until a BOE occurs.  Also, given a standard deviation of almost 5 days this doesn't help much at all (ugh, weather ).

See also this thread: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3183.0.html

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind + Temp @ Surface
Large GiF!

[Neven]

The cold is coming in now. It all depends on bottom melting and what the winds will do to the ice sticking out in the Beaufort, but to me it looks like the minimum could be reached on the 9th or 10th.

[Lord M Vader]

Looks like a fairly early minimum then. And a possible quick refreeze of the areas in Beaufort. In contrast to last year, the SST anomalies in Chukchi and Beaufort are considerably lower this year.

[gandul]

Looks like a fairly early minimum then. And a possible quick refreeze of the areas in Beaufort. In contrast to last year, the SST anomalies in Chukchi and Beaufort are considerably lower this year.

The green areas in the pacific side, from the russian ice analysis map

http://www.aari.ru/odata/_d0015.php?lang=1

are good candidate areas to fast refreeze.
Nevertheless, Beaufort sea ice area rebounds as soon as winds abate, but seems will be pretty agitated this week again.

[Burnrate]

The cold is coming in now. It all depends on bottom melting and what the winds will do to the ice sticking out in the Beaufort, but to me it looks like the minimum could be reached on the 9th or 10th.

(Uh oh, early minimum predictions, if the Arctic seas this post it will definitely do the opposite. ;P)

Someone suggested that when the cold arrives it could bring some serious storms because there is still a lot of heat nearby.  The cold will create a relatively high temperature gradient making strong, late storms for a bit.

It will be interesting to see if something like this occurs. 

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast
Wind @ Surface
Large GiF!

[BornFromTheVoid]

Today's images and slow animation. A significant increase in the Beaufort sea, significant loss on the Laptev/ESS side, the main talking points.

[Lord M Vader]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now officially below 4 Mn km²  adue to NSIDC 5-day average numbers. Per 5/9 the number is 3,928 Mn km². Anyone who has the daily values for the last five days?

[Burnrate]

The NSIDC 5 day has a loss of 75 today with a big fat zero extent loss from the daily number.  If we continue, even with very minor daily losses the 5-day loss will jump up again in a couple days after the plus 47 from the 2nd is removed from the average.

Regardless of what happens they are some big numbers for early September (losses of 71, 80, 85, 88, and 75).  2020 is still 541 away from the 2012 minimum so it will take a lot to beat that but it still seems possible.

[Juan C. García]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now officially below 4 Mn km²  adue to NSIDC 5-day average numbers. Per 5/9 the number is 3,928 Mn km². Anyone who has the daily values for the last five days?

                    Extent
Date          10^6 sq km
01-sep-20     4.004
02-sep-20     4.051
03-sep-20     3.939
04-sep-20     3.822
05-sep-20     3.822

You can always find them here:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/

[UCMiami]

It is a little hard to judge accurately through the thin cloud, but it appears the edge of the laptev bite has moved about 25 km toward 150E (now at about 149.5E) in the last three days. The arm of ice stretching toward the ESS as a result appears to have truly shattered into individual flows with large leads.

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-367594.04218257556,1036867.414714271,-238954.04218257556,1107843.414714271&p=arctic&z=2&l=Graticule,Reference_Labels,Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands721,MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands367(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor

[Paul]

What I'm finding almost speechless is just how far back the ice edge has got as even only as far back as June, there was no real sign we will see Atlantification as much as we have seen. Yes, winds has been blowing in from the south fairly frequently but surely warm SSTS are playing their part aswell?

Ironically will it have much impacts on next year's melt when usually the ice around Svalbard and along the Atlantic front is likely to be exported down to fram? The impacts I could see is Atlantic lows heading further northwards bringing in 'warmth' and that warmth heading more into the basin as there is alot less ice to protect it? All speculation of course.

[Lord M Vader]

Thanks JC. I know where they are available but can't reach them from the cell phone.

Interesting to see the recent stall. I doubt we'll go much löser from now and onward wrt Nevens post wrt colder weather the upcoming week.

[gerontocrat]

What I'm finding almost speechless is just how far back the ice edge has got as even only as far back as June, there was no real sign we will see Atlantification as much as we have seen. Yes, winds has been blowing in from the south fairly frequently but surely warm SSTS are playing their part aswell?

Ironically will it have much impacts on next year's melt when usually the ice around Svalbard and along the Atlantic front is likely to be exported down to fram? The impacts I could see is Atlantic lows heading further northwards bringing in 'warmth' and that warmth heading more into the basin as there is alot less ice to protect it? All speculation of course.

If GFS has got it right(?) looks to me like in general Atlantic warmth travels up the Norwegian Sea, some joins up with the airflow heading east long the Russian Shore, and then across the Chukchi and Beaufort to the American Shore.

The rest is an airflow from the Central Arctic down the Greenland Sea.

What that means for the ice is ...?

[gandul]

What I'm finding almost speechless is just how far back the ice edge has got as even only as far back as June, there was no real sign we will see Atlantification as much as we have seen. Yes, winds has been blowing in from the south fairly frequently but surely warm SSTS are playing their part aswell?

Ironically will it have much impacts on next year's melt when usually the ice around Svalbard and along the Atlantic front is likely to be exported down to fram? The impacts I could see is Atlantic lows heading further northwards bringing in 'warmth' and that warmth heading more into the basin as there is alot less ice to protect it? All speculation of course.

If GFS has got it right(?) looks to me like in general Atlantic warmth travels up the Norwegian Sea, some joins up with the airflow heading east long the Russian Shore, and then across the Chukchi and Beaufort to the American Shore.

The rest is an airflow from the Central Arctic down the Greenland Sea.

What that means for the ice is ...?

Are you talking about a 5000 miles travel in seven days?
Is this a wave or air particles?

[gerontocrat]

Are you talking about a 5000 miles travel in seven days?
Is this a wave or air particles?

No just a general direction of travel of the winds. Mind you, a particle caught up in a 30 kph air stream for 7 days might travel 5000 kms or 3,000 miles.

[bbr2315]

Are you talking about a 5000 miles travel in seven days?
Is this a wave or air particles?

No just a general direction of travel of the winds. Mind you, a particle caught up in a 30 kph air stream for 7 days might travel 5000 kms or 3,000 miles.

The impending Rockies / High Plains snow event is to blame for two impending heat influxes. The first will waft towards the Pacific front as the tropospheric polar vortex falls into the Rockies and gets stuck for a few days. This tropospheric vortex is going to back up the jet stream up above, sending a plume of PAC heat NW-ward towards Bering/Beaufort/Chukchi.

The first "reversal" and heat flux into the PAC-side resultant of ^ is visible around the below frame of today's GFS (Day 4-5).



Afterwards, the vortex' lingering results in a major build up of heat from the Gulf of Mexico on its eastern side over SE North America (the "Bermuda High"). As the unseasonal vortex becomes unstuck and rejoins the jet stream, the secondary bulge of heat in front of it is also pushed into the jet stream. That part is visible in the below frame via the +500MB anomalies over Quebec-ish, en route to the ATL front a few days thereafter.

[gandul]

Are you talking about a 5000 miles travel in seven days?
Is this a wave or air particles?

No just a general direction of travel of the winds. Mind you, a particle caught up in a 30 kph air stream for 7 days might travel 5000 kms or 3,000 miles.

Understood thank you. I think I agree.

However I’ve been thinking about the related question other posters had about Laura reaching the Arctic. I think the only thing that propagates that north is an upper level wave or perturbation residual of Laura, “breaking” or producing new high latitude storms in the North Atlantic and the Arctic by baroclinic instability or supporting or strengthening other instabilities. I don’t think the Arctic gets much of a frangipani aroma ever.

[Freegrass]

Wind @ Surface + 3-hour Precipitation Accumulation for the last 72 hours and the next five days.

All that snow is gonna insulate the ice from freezing, isn't it? Will this become another positive feedback loop? More open water means more snow, means more open water and even more snow next year?

[SimonF92]

Snow will indeed increase (marginally) but eventually this will transition to rainfall

[Cook]

Snow will indeed increase (marginally) but eventually this will transition to rainfall

Amazing graphic, may I ask where it is from?