PIOMAS 2020 Arctic Sea Ice Volume September Average: June poll

[Juan C. García]

I think this is the first PIOMAS Volume September Poll. I gave range options that are on the 2007-2019 values. The first 13 lowest years are the 2007-2019 years.

Until 2004, all years were above 10,000 km³. The years 2005 and 2006 were on the 9,000-10,000 km³ range. And from 2007 to 2019, the volume has been at 7,250 km³ or under. The worst year [2012] was 3,787 km³.

Values from the PIOMAS Monthly Ice Volume Data:
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/data/

Year    Sept. Avg.
          (10³ km³)
2000      11.08
2001      12.28
2002      10.85
2003      10.28
2004      10.04
2005        9.28
2006        9.11
2007        6.53
2008        7.25
2009        6.93
2010        4.74
2011        4.48
2012        3.79
2013        5.48
2014        6.97
2015        5.85
2016        4.53
2017        4.68
2018        5.08
2019        4.19

From lowest to highest:

[Juan C. García]

I voted in the 4-4.5 10³ km³ range. So 2020 could be on the 2^nd or 3^rd lowest year.

8 days to change the vote! 

[Phoenix]

Most of the ice at the minimum will be in the CAB where 2020 currently ranks 9th all time.

4.50 - 5.00

[oren]

Thanks for making this poll JCG. I personally prefer to look at the Sep minimum or the Sep 10th value rather than the average, because otherwise it includes another gamble on the timing of the minimum. I also note Sep volume has a very large range, much more so than extent or area, so maybe some adaptive bin width scale would be better than a fixed one. But I'll take a stab at 4.25-4.75.
Early preconditioning and advantage on the Siberian side are balanced by disadvantage in CAB, CAA and Beaufort. CAB extra is poised to go down the Fram and CAA extra could go down the channels, but CAA melt/potential breakup seems a bit late this year, and Fram export is at a standstill at the moment. The major factor is the sun, which for now isn't making a strong appearance, with the models not stabilizing on a major blowtorch and/or dipole and Friv keeping rather silent. So I'm going for normal-low 2010s year, missing out on 1st or 2nd, but avoiding the rebounds as well.

[Stephan]

I took the 4.5 ± 0.25 bin, expecting 2020 will fight for 5^th in the ranking list with 2016.

[igs]

3.75 - 4.25 that would allow to be in the range of 2019, also allows to quite a bit lower and also allows to be almost on par or a bit higher.


Lower is possible but wold take a huge combo of events that cannot be just predicted and i don't expect the minimum to be significantly higher than 2019, perhaps a bit, depending on the weather like always.

[Juan C. García]

Thanks for making this poll JCG. I personally prefer to look at the Sep minimum or the Sep 10th value rather than the average, because otherwise it includes another gamble on the timing of the minimum. I also note Sep volume has a very large range, much more so than extent or area, so maybe some adaptive bin width scale would be better than a fixed one. But I'll take a stab at 4.25-4.75.

Thank you for your comments, Oren.

I chose the monthly average because I think that on PIOMAS there is not the noise that we have on NSIDC ASI extent, with low or fast refreeze on the 2nd half of September. The volume is more stable. On the ranges, I think that it will be ok if we dissapear the 6.00-7.00 10^3 km3. I didn't think that a lot of people would vote on those ranges, but I decided to give a try.

How are the bins that you are thinking?

[oren]

My thought was to give wider bins for the higher volumes, something like this:
Above 9.00 10^3 km^3
Between 8.00 and 9.50 10^3 km^3
Between 7.00 and 8.25 10^3 km^3
Between 6.25 and 7.25 10^3 km^3
Between 5.75 and 6.50 10^3 km^3
Between 5.50 and 6.00 10^3 km^3

Should someone think a (temporary) recovery/rebound is coming, they might still be hard pressed to pick a narrow bin. For example think of the distance between 2015 or 2014. So the wider bins give at least some chance to the upside gamblers.
Despite this seeming like an impossibility, I actually think a year like 2014 is still within the realm of the possible, given freakishly cold weather.

If you think the suggestion useful, maybe the July poll could incorporate it. (I am hoping you will make the volume polls a recurring tradition).

[Juan C. García]

Ok and yes, I am thinking to make this poll on a monthly basis, like NSIDC and JAXA polls.

[Phoenix]

Thank you Juan. The increased visibility on volume is appreciated.

[Richard Rathbone]

This poll has been added to my September challenge. However I am sticking to the same deadline as the extent polls, so there are just 52 hours left for PIOMAS challenge entries.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3113.0.html

[gregcharles]

I've seen the list in the OP many times, but somehow it never really struck me just how fast the PIOMAS min volume dropped from the first time under 10K (km3), which was 2005 to under 5K, which was 2010. No year had a min in the 8,000s and only one was in the 7,000s. Since then, it's sort of been oscillating around 5K, so I suppose we are fortunate. How long can that hold up though?

[Tom_Mazanec]

I picked next to last, if it is that low I will get the “I got it right” consolation prize and if it is higher I can say “Whew”. The volume is dropping pretty fast over the last decade or two.