What the Buoys are telling

[anonymous]

Currently 9 ice mass balance buoys are floating within the ice pack. Three of them are more or less stationary, all report no melting so far with temperatures slowly approaching 0°C. I've found it interesting that some buoys show different thickness growth pattern, but the data is preliminary, so it make no sense to dig deeper, apparently snow is not the cause. I'm working on data of previous buoys to have something to compare, unfortunately the archive contains xls files with different formats, needs some time...

[ghoti]

It is interesting how different temperatures can be on buoys relatively close to each other on the Beaufort. http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/newdata.htm 2012L (-0.71) and 2012H (-5.86) currently show a 5 degree C difference. I've been guessing the warmer one is closer to an open lead.

[anonymous]

Here nearly a month later an update including snow. I have the slight impression the buoys work more reliable under ice grow conditions. That would also explain why the amount of buoys is usually greater in winter. Could someone help mapping the abbreviations to the webcam images? I'm not sure I did it right and resisted to include the live images. Would make sense having them here.

[Pmt111500]

My belief is 2012H is Obuoy#8 and 2012L is #7

[anonymous]

Beaufort Sea:   OBuoy7/2012L                    OBuoy8/2012H



North Pole:      NP Cam 1/2013B                  NP Cam 2/2013E


(Should update every hour or so, to play nice, don't want to hammer the sources.)

Update: 2013E shares the floe with NP cam 2 and 2013B with NP 1.

[Jim Hunt]

The Woods Hole web site has some interesting pictures of what's involved in installing an OBuoy, including "creating a massive hole in the ice". They also have pictures of the installation of what I presume are OBuoy 7 and OBuoy 8.

I can't help but wonder what's physically involved in persuading one to lean over at an angle of 15 degrees or so!

[Pmt111500]

I was wondering if it's top heavy and tilts as snow melts unevenly around the base but at least here it looks like this is not the case.

[Shared Humanity]

I was wondering if it's top heavy and tilts as snow melts unevenly around the base but at least here it looks like this is not the case.

Shouldn't that buoy be frozen solid in the floe? Could it be that it was frozen in a small floe as a result of the fracturing this winter and as it was compacted this floe rode up over an adjacent flow as a ridge was formed?

[Jim Hunt]

Intrigued, I explored the O-Buoy project website and discovered . Here's a still, which I guess explains the sudden tilt?

[jdallen]

Intrigued, I explored the O-Buoy project website and discovered
Here's a still, which I guess explains the sudden tilt?

That's... Bad.

And... Yeah.

[Peter Ellis]

That video's priceless.  It's a goddamn frappucino there.

[ChrisReynolds]

Great video, great piece of kit.

[anonymous]

Quite trippy as the days are getting shorter and shorter, is that the moon before the cut?

Btw. the massive melt 2012J indicates is discussed at the blog. Despite the temperature failure, it might be correct and forced by a disturbed halocline caused by the PAC.

[LurkyMcLurkerson]

More stuff about the buoys:

www.o-buoy.org

Lots of pictures and stuff of these things and their deployment process, if anybody finds that helpful.

From "Buoy Structure" under the "Buoy" section at the top:

"The main buoy housing is an aluminum cylinder 2.4 m long and 0.3 m in diameter. Three Primary Lithium battery packs, two cylinders containing CO2 calibration gases, Iridium communication equipment, O3 Instruments, Power control and Supervisory CPU, CR1000 CSI data logger, CO2, and DOAS instruments are all placed inside the main housing. A 2 meter high tower is placed on top the buoy, where meteorological sensors, camera, GPS, and DOAS scan head are mounted. Connections are made between the tower and the main housing using Amphenol Class E Environmental connectors. A Gilman Corporation Type 1000 floatation collar provides buoyancy if the buoy melts free of the ice. The collar is 1.1 m OD X 0.64 m HT and provides 482 kg of buoyancy."

[wanderer]

Oh Boy... http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy8/webcam

[Espen]

Oh Boy... http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy8/webcam

A rare picture of the infamous Blue Bigfoot?

[wanderer]

Oh, should have made a screenshot! Before, the cam was still in a (more or less) horizontal position...
Where do they archive these shots?

[AartBluestoke]

wanderer,
The video linked previously by Jim Hunt has been updated until the 21st, so i imagine that it'll contain todays shots in a day or 2.

[Pmt111500]

wow. If the buoy flotation ring on the base has survived that, AND the bottom part has survived it might straighten it self still if it gets to water, but that doesn't look good for instruments on board :-|

[Jim Hunt]

That doesn't look good for instruments on board :-|

I've been keeping an ad hoc pictorial archive. Here's a nice sunny weekend shot, together with the current view! The instruments still seem to be working after a fashion, and reveal a recent roll from -15 degrees to +38 or thereabouts. Maybe an updated video will reveal more shortly?

[Jim Hunt]

Getting back to what else the buoys might be telling us, I just stumbled across a paper from Donald Perovich which reveals what the buoys in the Beaufort told us in the summer of 2007.  Here's a pertinent picture from it:

[Pmt111500]

"roll from -15 degrees to +38 or thereabouts" yes at least the camera looks like staring almost straight down, but it's still upright if the pitch-reading is correct. No special comment on the image by Perovich, a bit surprised that the bottom melt seems to start only when the temperature is pretty much uniform through the floe, even in ice that thick. It's very easy to find spots of 30 cm spring ice that crumble when stepped on in here, but ok, it might happen even with thicker floes.

[anonymous]

Thanks Jim, seeing 2.5m thickness disappearing in just two months is indeed telling.

[Jim Hunt]

Seeing 2.5m thickness disappearing in just two months is indeed telling.

It remains to be seen if something similar happens this year!

The DMI mean surface temperature has just ticked above zero degrees for the first time, rather later than 2007 or 2012. 2012L (AKA OBuoy 7) is looking a bit like Perovich's picture at the moment, though none of the others are yet as far as I can see.

Do you believe 2012J's bottom melt?

[anonymous]

Do you believe 2012J's bottom melt?

Well, actually it's only the buoys and Modis I trust given sensors are reported to function. All other  measurements need serious interpretation. Regarding 2012J status: Bottom sounder unreliable from 12/18/2012, using thermistor data to estimate bottom surface

[Apocalypse4Real]

Here is the O-Buoy 8 webcam 24 June, 2013 photo. Look s like fracturing right beside the camera.

[jdallen]

Here is the O-Buoy 8 webcam 24 June, 2013 photo. Look s like fracturing right beside the camera.

What are the odds....

Now, as to conditions, I find Koeln maps things pretty well.

http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/synNNWWarctis.gif

Note the 12 noon GMT temps running from Scandinavia all the way to the Kara... Mid to upper 20s.

Watch for close to the same later today along the NW passage and on to Barrow.  There were similar low to mid 20s there mid day yesterday.

Also recall a lot of the ice in the lower Beaufort is fractured MYI shoved there by various cyclones. It in fact may be buffering the local temperatures... Which translates into sucking up energy.

[Pmt111500]

"Update: 2013E shares the floe with NP cam 2 and 2013B with NP 1.",
great! Would these be the PAWS buoys in the table? http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/maps_daily_table.html

Anyway, they're so tightly clustered in the group of buoys floating towards Fram it's hard to read the id-numbers on the daily track map.

[anonymous]

Would these be the PAWS buoys in the table?

Seems so, NPEO expands to North Pole Environmental Observatory.

[wanderer]

Video has been updated:

[Jim Hunt]

Regarding 2012J status: Bottom sounder unreliable from 12/18/2012, using thermistor data to estimate bottom surface

That's what I meant. If you look at the thermistor data it's not obvious (to me at least!) that the bottom surface is where the graph shows it to be. Interestingly the thermistor readings for OBuoy 8/2012H indicate that much of the floe is above -1 degrees, and even above zero in some places.

2013E shares the floe with NP cam 2 and 2013B with NP 1.

Note also that whilst the NP 40 ice camp has been evacuated, 2012G still seems to be in situ there and happily recording data. Parts of that floe are above zero too.

[Edit - Belatedly added chart]

[Pmt111500]

the floe of Obuoy#8 has moved out of the locked tilted position or has been crushed by the larger ones grinding it, consequently the buoy has straightened itself. markers are again visible in the image, now we should start to see some more lateral movements of the floes.  http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy8/webcam

(Modified a couple of hours later) The buoy is rotating so soon there might be no markers visible. Assuming the markers are the zero point of 'roll' the field of view of the camera is about 20 degrees.

(Modified) Oops, no it's not 20 degrees since not 'roll' is back down. What is this 'roll'?

[Espen]

It looks more quite around the other set of North Pole Ice Cams:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

[Jim Hunt]

It looks more quite around the other set of North Pole Ice Cams

It seems as though NPEO cam 1 might have only narrowly escaped a similar fate Espen. Take a look at . It looks suspiciously like some water in the background in the second week of June and thereafter. Here's a recent snapshot:

[Espen]

Jim,

Yes it is open water you see in the background, and these cams are closer to the pole (+/- 85) than the other set of cams, but not many sunny days up there this season.

[Pmt111500]

in my opinion the obuoy#8 is in open water. the wall of snow currently visible in the image is likely the remnants of the floe it was on, the larger floe of the markers has cut it in two hitting the edge of the lead, leaving a crumbled heap of rotten ice of the floe of the buoy on the neighbouring large floe. the submerged part of the floe of the buoy went under the ice and is likely melted by now. In other words, the rounding action of floes seen very close up :-). Great to see it so close up, I wouldn't want to be on a floe like that in the Baltic.

on the other hand the surface of the NPEO Cam#1 floe looks still somewhat reliable, though the rounding action is likely seen on the middle background (heap of stuff beside the lead). I would be very nice to see the other edge of the floe too, as it looks like the Camera is about a quarter away from the (assumedly circular) other edge of (multi-year?) floe.

[Jim Hunt]

in my opinion the obuoy#8 is in open water.

I'm inclined to agree. The buoy's assorted sensors maintain it's back upright once more, and here's this morning's view from under the clouds covering the Beaufort at the moment:

[Anne]

O-Buoy #7 has been showing a rapid deterioration in the ice over the past 24 hours.

[Pmt111500]

The story of O-Buoy#8 continues: the buoy is likely in open water but has again tilted. There might be a subsurface floe hitting the buoy 'keel' tilting it. This should crack before long for the higher conductivity of water vs ice, so the buoy should be safe. Unless the floe dislodges or des-troys the flotation ring round the buoy. (is the con-troy? of the buoy strong enough? sorry, getting playful, hardly a way to behave for a 'full member')

[Anne]

NPEO Cam 2 is showing  sunlight on open water in the background.

[anonymous]

The data before May isn't going to change - note the new dimensions.

[Jim Hunt]

It's July 1st and the "real" melting season has just begun, so I'm updating my crude thermistor profiles too.

Here's 2012H/OBuoy 8. For further details on interpretation see the "Bottom Melt" thread.  Note that now (according to the thermistors at least) most of the floe is at or above the temperature of the water beneath it.

[Anne]

This is slightly OT and probably frivolous, but I am curious about whatever it is that has been gradually emerging from the deteriorating ice over the last week on the O-Buoy #7 webcam, on the right at about one o'clock. It doesn't look like another buoy (or even two) so I guess it's some kind of debris that was fast in the ice.

The surf is drawing ever nearer.

[Jim Hunt]

I am curious about whatever it is that has been gradually emerging from the deteriorating ice over the last week.

It's certainly not very clear, but perhaps it's the batteries for the ice mass balance instrumentation, which is not otherwise visible in the camera's field of view? Whatever it's precise location, IMB 2012L certainly confirms the increasingly rapid approach of "the surf".

[ghoti]

They say the O-buoy is co-located with Ice Tethered Profiler - 65 and Arctic Ocean Flux Buoy - 24 so I'm betting that's what we see.

[Jim Hunt]

Those are the two obvious ones I think ghoti. However my assumption was that Anne was referring to the little "black box" emerging from the ice behind and to the right of the ITP (white top).

[Anne]

I was indeed, Jim. Your suggestion of batteries is interesting. I have searched in vain all over the site for a video equivalent to the one for O-Buoy #8 - if you have a link for O-Buoy #7 that would be great.

[Agres]

With increasing warmth and moisture north of the Arctic Circle, we should be seeing more fresh water flowing into, and condensing on to the Arctic seas, and thus the fresh water lens floating between the AW and the sea ice should be getting thicker.  I think the freshwater budget of the Arctic basin has changed in the last couple of years.  Do we see that in the buoy data??

If not, where is that fresh water going?

[Jim Hunt]

If you have a link for O-Buoy #7 that would be great.

Try for the OBuoy 7 video. Currently about 16 Mb.

[Jim Hunt]

I think the freshwater budget of the Arctic basin has changed in the last couple of years.  Do we see that in the buoy data??

Have you seen Rob Dekker's discussion on salinity profiles?

There's lots more to be found on the ITP site too, but I'm afraid I'm not the best person to interpret them properly!