The 2022 melting season

[Jim Hunt]

I rest my case:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/03/facts-about-the-arctic-in-march-2022/

As a commenter put it:

Will we ever know the true value of the 2022 maximum!?

[Freegrass]

I was wondering when someone would start this up.
Here's the HYCOM 365 day GIF to start off the season.
Large GIF!

[nadir]

Spectacular clear sky NOAA-20 polar orbiter view of the northern Bering and southern Chukchi Seas Friday. The demise of thicker #seaice in Norton Sound & SE of St. Lawrence Island is alarming. New thin ice has formed but it will melt out easily as spring proceeds.

https://twitter.com/alaskawx/status/1502451716947529728?s=21

[gerontocrat]

The NSIDC daily sea ice AREA graph from Nico Sun ( https://cryospherecomputing.com/ )
 shows how in a very short time the question changes from " how high can it go " to " how low can it go "

[The Blob warned us]

12z ECMWF at day 5 now predicting T2m +25C in the Northern Hemisphere, +33.8 in the Southern just a day later.

[HapHazard]

I'm curious if that odd extent blip will yet be corrected. Fairly early maximum either way, right? And now we could get a kickstart to the melt season.

I think this will be a "fun" week upcoming.

[KenB]

I'm curious if that odd extent blip will yet be corrected.

Just eyeballing the graphs, it looks to me like even a fairly large correction (say, removing 2/3 of the reported increase and subsequent decrease) would leave the maximum date unchanged. IOW, the "blip" really does seem to pretty much be sitting on the maximum anyway.

[binntho]

This melting season certainly seems to be off to a running start - but it is still early days. However, as Neven was want to point out, preconditioning is very important, and the strongest preconditioning during early melt season is the wetting of the surface of the ice. The forecast cloudy and stormy weather this coming week fits in whith the longer-term forecast for March and April - windy, cloudy and hot (at least relatively speaking) and seems destined to precondition the ice for summer melt as never before.

With the polehole disappearing, WorldView becomes once again the place to play around in, for me at least, and I noticed this very strange coloring north of Nordaustlandet of Svalbard - compare March 7 when the previously open water seems to be covered in fresh but clear ice, and then March 12 with open water returned - but looking very yellow and dirty! Any guesses as to what could be causing this?

Animation requires a click.

[Jim Hunt]

Somebody else has noticed the warm air over the Fram Strait at the moment:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/03/facts-about-the-arctic-in-march-2022/#comment-550378

[Aluminium]

The season starts stormy.

[nadir]

This melting season certainly seems to be off to a running start - but it is still early days. However, as Neven was want to point out, preconditioning is very important, and the strongest preconditioning during early melt season is the wetting of the surface of the ice. The forecast cloudy and stormy weather this coming week fits in whith the longer-term forecast for March and April - windy, cloudy and hot (at least relatively speaking) and seems destined to precondition the ice for summer melt as never before.

With the polehole disappearing, WorldView becomes once again the place to play around in, for me at least, and I noticed this very strange coloring north of Nordaustlandet of Svalbard - compare March 7 when the previously open water seems to be covered in fresh but clear ice, and then March 12 with open water returned - but looking very yellow and dirty! Any guesses as to what could be causing this?

Animation requires a click.

Your guess as good as mine, but MODIS images near the Pole hole often have a greenish-brownish tint, probably caused by imaging limitations being the sun so low in the horizon. Maybe the fine aspect of the first image is just luck?

[FishOutofWater]

I checked in with the intent of starting the melting season thread if someone hadn't done it already.

The bomb cyclones that have spun from the north Atlantic into the subarctic seas have blasted heat towards the pole. Another one is happening now. The melting season has begun.

[johnm33]

"any guesses" maybe water above 0c eroding the shelf which looks smooth enough in places to be permafrost / methane burst from the depths of Barents-debris mixing and surfacing in the vortices along the shelf/ ?? https://go.nasa.gov/3I3cMXy

[Phil.]

I understand that an asteroid struck near Jan Mayen on the 11th, any word on whether it had any effect on the ice?

[Shared Humanity]

I understand that an asteroid struck near Jan Mayen on the 11th, any word on whether it had any effect on the ice?

Doubt very much that a 3 meter wide asteroid would have any effect on the ice.

https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-discovered-hours-before-earth-impact-eb5/

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast + Last 72h
Wind + Temp @ Surface
Large GiF!

That hot air entering the arctic is pretty severe. Looking at the 30 HYCOM, you can see how the ice is being pushed back into the basin. It's like someone pushed the arctic rewind button...

In the mean time, the Bering sea is getting more of those northerlies it had all winter long...

[RoxTheGeologist]

Latest Five Day Forecast + Last 72h
Wind + Temp @ Surface
Large GiF!

That hot air entering the arctic is pretty severe. Looking at the 30 HYCOM, you can see how the ice is being pushed back into the basin. It's like someone pushed the arctic rewind button...

In the mean time, the Bering sea is getting more of those northerlies it had all winter long...

I had a flash of inspiration from the DMI graph - The base of the ice is at -1.8C, the top is governed by the emission of heat through the atmosphere (that can be slowed with clouds, etc). However, if the ice is thinner, you will expect more heat flow through it, and therefore the surface of the ice will be elevated. That's why we are seeing the baseline temperature increase - there is much less thick ice. The spikes of heat are from injections of warm air (and clouds).

[nadir]

I checked in with the intent of starting the melting season thread if someone hadn't done it already.

The bomb cyclones that have spun from the north Atlantic into the subarctic seas have blasted heat towards the pole. Another one is happening now. The melting season has begun.

The question is whether those injections of heat and moisture will have a enduring effect on the coming melting season. Warmth brought from the Atlantic has a transient effect but, what about moisture? Can big injections of moisture stay for much longer in the Arctic atmosphere and could it lead to another storm-dominated Arctic spring/summer? Or will it return to normal much faster?

[Comradez]

There's definitely noticeably more activity on here and the rest of the cryoblogosphere in general when arctic sea ice is closer to record lows, whereas this past winter sea ice was relatively high most of the time, and this place was a bit dead. 

But now we have arctic area and extent rather low again, so it will be interesting to see if interest picks up again heading into the summer.

[oren]

Several posts moved to the season chatter thread.
Objectively we have lost some data sources, with the hardest recent blow being the loss of the data compilations by Wipneus. However, the solution is to find alternative sources and to use our pooled knowledge to contribute more.
Further discussion should continue off-thread.

[pearscot]

Quite an interesting start to the season. I had expected the high extent (relatively speaking) to hold stronger, but that appears to have dwindled going into the melting season. I’ll be keeping an eye on La Niña as it’s expected to continue strengthening. We are in a somewhat rare situation where a 3 year La Niña looks to be all but certain. Moreover, it has a chance of becoming quite strong, aka super La Niña. I can only imagine what will unfold when the world finally encounters another strong El Niño.

Nonetheless, I really don’t know what to expect this melting season. I’m just going to watch and see what trends emerge, although I find it rather interesting that the natural ice arch in the Nares Strait never formed over the winter and this will have allowed for additional ice export and will remain throughout the melt season.

[Jim Hunt]

Objectively we have lost some data sources

As I just mentioned elsewhere:

There are lots of "real time" graphs/maps to be found at:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/

[Glen Koehler]

https://climatecrocks.com/2022/03/16/temperature-spikes-in-arctic/
"Washington Post:

A record-breaking “bomb cyclone” that began its development over the U.S. East Coast on Friday is bringing an exceptional insurgence of mild air to the Arctic. Temperatures around 50 degrees (28 Celsius) above normal could visit the North Pole on Wednesday, climbing to near the freezing mark."

"Temperatures averaged over the high Arctic north of 80 degrees latitude are about 25 degrees (14 Celsius) above normal. Some forecast models indicate small areas in the Arctic, including near the North Pole, could experience temperatures as much as 45 to 54 degrees (25 to 30 Celsius) above normal Wednesday and Thursday.

In Hopen, an island off Svalbard in the Barents Sea at 76 degrees north latitude, the temperature recently hit 39 degrees (3.9 Celsius), its highest March temperature on record."

[binntho]

Well the bomb cyclone has had it's day, and looking at nullschool and tidbits, the current AHAA seems about to end by tomorrow. So perhaps a bit of a rebound in the extent numbers in the short term. (AHAA = Atlantic Hot Air Attact)

[gerontocrat]

Well the bomb cyclone has had it's day, and looking at nullschool and tidbits, the current AHAA seems about to end by tomorrow. So perhaps a bit of a rebound in the extent numbers in the short term. (AHAA = Atlantic Hot Air Attact)

So perhaps a bit of a rebound in the extent numbers in the short term An interesting question.
The ice loss is concentrated in the vulnerable areas of the Atlantic Front, and it is mid-March. So will there be a re-freeze or is there enough ocean warmth to maintain open water?

[binntho]

It will be interesting to see! Nullschool has temps well below -11C over open water north of Svalbard  by Sunday.

[oren]

I expect some rebound, as the CAB-Barents front tends to do when the weather reverses. But the new ice will be thin and vulnerable to the next attack.

[Freegrass]

Well the bomb cyclone has had it's day, and looking at nullschool and tidbits, the current AHAA seems about to end by tomorrow. So perhaps a bit of a rebound in the extent numbers in the short term. (AHAA = Atlantic Hot Air Attact)

So perhaps a bit of a rebound in the extent numbers in the short term An interesting question.
The ice loss is concentrated in the vulnerable areas of the Atlantic Front, and it is mid-March. So will there be a re-freeze or is there enough ocean warmth to maintain open water?

The re-freeze will be insignificant. It's the wind and the transpolar drift that'll be moving the ice back over the open water that will matter most.

[be cause]

More vigorous depressions transversing the ice front from Greenland to Kara in the coming week will not be an aid to recovery even as they may increase extent .
 Meanwhile I notice HYCOM is exporting the thickest ice via the garlic press again ! Any sign of this in the real world ?
 

[oren]

We have realized Hycom does not recognize fast ice. I believe the garlic press shown does not exist IRL, though haven't tried to verify through Worldview.
The open Nares is real though.

[Glen Koehler]

<snip>
 Meanwhile I notice HYCOM is exporting the thickest ice via the garlic press again ! Any sign of this in the real world ?

     Or is that continued freezing and thickening of ice?  It is still cold enough in that region in March for additional ice growth even if the ASI numbers are declining overall due to losses around the periphery.

[Glen Koehler]

That 200k Feb. spike makes things look even worse!!
300k loss from maximum still not good but % over previous years becomes totally misleading at this season (a few "good days" in summer would lose that excess?).

     I think the issue you raise is an inevitable consequence of comparing values so very early in the process.  At just 1 or 2% cumulative progress, small absolute deviations become proportionally very large.

[Killian]

Hey, people.

Just a friendly reminder of some of the recent science that should impact our analyses:

2021 Heat Bombs in the Arctic, via Scripps:




https://www.cbs8.com/article/tech/science/scripps-institution-of-oceanography-heat-bombs-destroying-arctic-ice/509-fcee1005-ba14-412c-a7e7-f1dd302ac34b

2018 El Nino's diminish Antarctic ice shelves (I post this because of the correlation I have written of regarding EN's and ASI and assume a rough corollary as per heat bombs from the Pacific via the Bering Strait):
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180108121618.htm

There's no EN on the horizon, so I post this merely as a reminder because the heat bomb effect is not EN-related so far as I know, so the mechanism should be consistent? I do assume the energy transfer is increased during EN's, but any warmth getting to the Bering Strait should have an effect.

Cheers

[Jim Hunt]

Arctic temperatures this AM (UTC):

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/03/facts-about-the-arctic-in-march-2022/#comment-552311

[gerontocrat]

The high temperatures and southerly winds in the North Atlantic extending into the Arctic have done the sea ice AREA in the Atlantic Front some real damage.

Graphs attached are derived from NSIDC 5 day trailing average data some maybe some more damage to come.

click images to enlarge

[gerontocrat]

Graphs attached are derived from NSIDC 5 day trailing average data

The East Siberian Sea has lost a signficant amount of sea ice area. Not sure what that is about.

Warmth replacing cold on the East coast of the USA has reversed ice gains in the St Lawrence

The Okhotsk sea ice area this year has stayed very low - currently 3rd lowest.

click images to enlarge

[Freegrass]

Latest Five Day Forecast + Last 48h
Wind + Temp @ Surface
Large GiF!

Another heat bomb will be coming in from the Pacific side this time...

My apologies for posting another forecast again. I promised I wouldn't, but guess I find this stuff to fascinating to quit... 😭

Also notice the reversal in wind direction on the Atlantic side. That'll surely fill in some gaps again...

[wallen]

With a relatively clear Worldview today , the sea ice north of Greenland appears to be in a lot of trouble this year. With the Nares Strait flowing freely and the open fractured ice on the NE side. The extent of melt back towards the pole will of great interest.

[ArcTickTock]

Was thinking this might be a quiet melting season but confidence in this is melting rapidly.  The ice edge on Bremen looks just wrong on the Atlantic Front to me for this TOY.  I mean Svalbard and NZ are almost ringed by open water and there is a ton of open water north of FJL… in March!  Maybe not unprecedented but not good either.  And it looks to me that the coastal “fissures” in the Laptev and the one that always opens up north of the NSI on into the East Siberian seem prominent to me for so early in the season.  These “fissures” in the ice pack always appear as a prelude to the Laptev and ESS starting to open up, right?  Perhaps my memory of prior patterning is off but again, just does not look right to me for mid March.  Maybe someone has images of these areas from prior seasons at this date that will ease my concern that this is something other than normal?

[passenger66]

something other than normal?

FWIW, IMHO, I think you've pointed at something not normal.

[Jim Hunt]

The high temperatures and southerly winds in the North Atlantic extending into the Arctic have done the sea ice AREA in the Atlantic Front some real damage.

Yup, and overall area too:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/03/facts-about-the-arctic-in-march-2022/#Mar-19

[oren]

An AMSR2 animation of sea ice concentration in the central Arctic, excluding the more peripheral regions, courtesy of the Alfred Wegener institute (AWI). Note the Leads experimental product exaggerates the width of leads, in order to better show movement which I find very useful. Much more information available in the AWI thread mostly updated by uniquorn.
Click to animate and click again for maximum resolution.
The gif source is mirrored on https://seaice.de/AMSR2_Central_Arctic_SIC-LEADS.gif by the esteemed Dr. Lars Kaleschke, who also posts on this forum from time to time.

[IceConcerned]

Very interesting.
:on top of that I have the impression that Beaufort ice is very fragmented, a heat intrusion would be quite damaging. And we have a strong export through Fram, with catchment high north, while the Greenland sea has been decimated already
Should we call it an interesting start?

[nadir]

Interesting forecast for next week. Beaufort High reappears and may stay for the week, even strengthen at the end of it, expect more ice shattering over Beaufort sea. American-side/Greenland high pressure vs Asian-side lows dipole configuration which will accelerate export of ice toward Atlantic, perhaps an extent rebound in Barents. Also, Bering inflow should restart given the pressure pattern.

[be cause]

The high temperatures and southerly winds in the North Atlantic extending into the Arctic have done the sea ice AREA in the Atlantic Front some real damage.

 
Yup, and overall area too:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/03/facts-about-the-arctic-in-march-2022/#Mar-19

shh! we're only 24 days ahead of 2016 and 36 ahead of 2012 ..

[kassy]

Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees (30 degrees Celsius) warmer than average.

https://roanoke.com/news/science/hot-poles-antarctica-arctic-70-and-50-degrees-above-normal/article_57a334c0-c361-5f62-9bfe-f73e89b363b0.html

Add that to the day count above and we might not have the atmospheric physics entirely right.

[Paul]

Was thinking this might be a quiet melting season but confidence in this is melting rapidly.  The ice edge on Bremen looks just wrong on the Atlantic Front to me for this TOY.  I mean Svalbard and NZ are almost ringed by open water and there is a ton of open water north of FJL… in March!  Maybe not unprecedented but not good either.  And it looks to me that the coastal “fissures” in the Laptev and the one that always opens up north of the NSI on into the East Siberian seem prominent to me for so early in the season.  These “fissures” in the ice pack always appear as a prelude to the Laptev and ESS starting to open up, right?  Perhaps my memory of prior patterning is off but again, just does not look right to me for mid March.  Maybe someone has images of these areas from prior seasons at this date that will ease my concern that this is something other than normal?

In answer to your question, 2017. Lots of strong winds blowing from Siberia resulted in open water which actually struggled to refreeze initially cos the 'warmth' was quite strong although the air is colder this time round so thin ice is rapidly growing behind.

I do think there is a tendacy of a little bit of getting carried away when we see winds blowing ice away from landmasses/fast ice and new thin ice forming behind, there is really nothing unusual in that especially these days. What the ice looks like now does not necessary reflect what it could look like in 3+ months time. 2017 proved that in the Laptev with it looking vulnable at this stage yet by September, there was still quite a bit of ice left.

And with the shift from low pressure to high pressure in the forecasts, as others have alluded too, we could start seeing some vivid cracks in the Beaufort which will no doubt some people will shout the ice is vulnable if that occurs.

[passenger66]

ArcTickTock's image shows open water in the Kara, which should be solid at the end of the freezing season shouldn't it?

[nadir]

ArcTickTock's image shows open water in the Kara, which should be solid at the end of the freezing season shouldn't it?

Strong winds have recently been pulling the ice away from the main island Novaya Zemlya, and may continue to do so.

This ECMWF Gif that includes isobars (time -72h to +120h) shows that the Kara sea has been at the receiving end of Atlantic storms for the last three days or more and this will continue throughout next week.

There’s a nice fat Atlantic storm coming in a couple of days and staying over Kara creating a nice dipole with the Beaufort high over the other side of the Arctic.

Edit The gif was bigger than I thought and was auto-playing too. I placed the +24h forecast instead, will fix the gif if I can.

[oren]

Just a kindly request, nadir and all other gif posters, please avoid making them auto-loading as this gobbles up the data of those who have a metered connection.
I think a width of 700 or 800 prevents auto-load.