The 2022 melting season

[vox_mundi]

Communities along Alaska's western coast are expected to face hurricane-force wind gusts and flooding Friday
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/09/16/weather/storm-merbok-alaska-friday/index.html



A powerful storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts is expected to bring torrential rain and enormous waves to Alaska's west coast this weekend, threatening to cause major flooding and beach erosion.

The system -- the remnants of Typhoon Merbok -- has been described by forecasters as "the strongest storm in over a decade" as it moves over the Bering Sea, which spans the northern Pacific Ocean between Alaska and Russia

Weather officials in Alaska also urged residents to prepare for the storm as it could threaten to overwhelm critical infrastructure and wash away roads. The storm's impacts are expected Friday through Sunday morning, with water levels rising the highest Saturday.

https://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=AKZ155&warncounty=AKC050&firewxzone=AKZ155&local_place1=Kipnuk%20AK&product1=Coastal+Flood+Warning&lat=59.939&lon=-164.039#.YyRdFGQpA0O

"Some locations may experience their worst coastal flooding in nearly 50 years. Peak water levels will persist for 10 to 14 hours before water recedes," the weather service in Fairbanks, Alaska, warned.

The agency warned Thursday that water levels in Nome could be up to 11 feet above the normal high tide line, and in Golovin up to 13 feet.

https://twitter.com/NWSFairbanks/status/1570193913868349440

Some areas including Savoonga, Diomede and the Bering Strait could see those conditions along with even higher wind gusts of 90 mph. Other areas at risk are the Chukchi Coast and Kotzebue Sound, the weather service in Fairbanks said.

Coastal flood watches have also been issued for all coastlines along the west coast of Alaska between just north of the Arctic Circle down through the Kuskokwim Delta coast.



“Interestingly with this storm, it looks like for the northern Bering Sea, this will be the deepest or strongest storm we’ve ever seen in September, so this is quite an unusual storm”

[nadir]

Note that the storm surge will necessarily accelerate the Bering inflow

From windy.com surface currents.

[Paul]

Looks like 2022 is now a top 10 year in both Area & Extent. So weird - simultaneously a dull yet very interesting year, IMO. Lots to learn from here.

Reminds me 2018 in the sence we were never close to record lows in the summer but September weather becoming unfavourable for a early minimum/higher extent than it should be.

It just tells me whilst obviously the ice is thinner in September, it's not taking much to see decent drops for September standards.

[Jim Hunt]

My take on the effects of ex Merbok north of the Bering Strait:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/09/facts-about-the-arctic-in-september-2022/#Sep-16

The GFS Wave forecast currently suggests a 10 second, 3 meter plus swell heading for the ice edge on Sunday...

[oren]

An update on AWI regional area in the interesting regions.
I remind these charts are an AWI AMSR2 test product provided by user seaice.de .
https://sites.google.com/view/sea-ice/startseite

Again split into two posts due to attachment limit.
Click to enlarge.

[oren]

The Beaufort appears to have bottomed out.
The CAA appeared to be doing so as well, but recently area took another step down.
The ESS is still edging lower slowly.
Laptev did an up and down again, mostly due to ice movement and a bit of melt.
The CAB did a down and up, probably thanks to the apparent refreezing of the near-polar open water.
Total area is rather stable, and considering the late date the way is probably up from here, unless the cyclone remnants help push lots more ice over the edge.

I am also attaching the OSISAF ice drift map (2-day distance, exaggerated visually by a factor of 3). The ice has been very much on the move this year. Some late season export is happening in Fram, but the worst offender this year was Nares. The AWI animation I posted earlier really highlights how much ice is flowing out of the Lincoln Sea at full speed, and this had been going on all through the season.

[Jim Hunt]

Successful Northwest Passage cruisers large and small are seeking shelter from the Merbok storm:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/06/the-northwest-passage-in-2022/#comment-639830

[vox_mundi]

A 'historically powerful' storm brings seas of up to 54 feet toward Alaska, NWS says
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/16/1123512183/alaska-typhoon-merbok-storm-coast

A huge chunk of Alaska's western coastline is now under flood and storm warnings, as forecasters warn that the remnants of a Pacific typhoon could bring seas up to 54 feet and winds up to 75 knots (86 mph) to the shore this weekend.

Post TC #Merbok moving into the Bering Sea this morning. Low pressure has reached 937 MB making it the deepest low to affect the region in September (since 2005). Winds to 75 kts and seas to 54 ft expected.

https://t.co/NPT0wbjvru



By 11 p.m. local time Thursday night, a weather buoy in the Western Aleutians was recording seas reaching 41 feet, the NWS office in Anchorage said. The storm's tropical origin was evident on the outlying Adak Island, where wind gusts reached 75 mph and the temperature rose to 70°F. (21°C)

https://twitter.com/NWSAnchorage/status/1570673717180792838

"Highest water levels are expected Saturday night and Sunday," the NWS said.

[Jim Hunt]

The latest NWS storm surge forecast for the Nome vicinity:

https://twitter.com/NWSAlaska/status/1570940177442545664

Water levels above normal high tide line.

Waves will worsen impacts.

[Jim Hunt]

Wave buoy records from the central Bering Sea:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/09/facts-about-the-arctic-in-september-2022/#comment-639847

Waves 16 meters high with a period of 19 seconds are not to be trifled with!

It remains to be seen how big the Merbok driven swell in the Chukchi Sea becomes, but it currently seems likely to be non trivial by the time it reaches the ice edge.

[OffTheGrid]

I just noticed it's 3m mid Chukchi. Set to increase over the next 24hrs. Nullschools wave prediction shows it essentially annihilating the ESAS Arm by 24hrs from now.
The cyclone is reading 950hPa in the Bering right now. Certainly nothing to be tricked with Jim.
Supposedly it will drop in size and rise to 989 as it sidles through the Bering strait into Chukchi. However there is a very strong Jetstream outflow at 250 hPa into a very deep and we'll organized high towards the Greenland side. So models cannot be trusted with anyone's life.
The well known saying about powerful cyclones like this one:
"The only thing you know they won't do is what you expect them to do."

[Aluminium]

September 12-16.

2021.

[Jim Hunt]

Ex Typhoon Merbok’s storm surge has reached Nome:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1571098823199686657

Also there’s already a noticeable surge at Red Dog Dock on the Chukchi Sea coast of Alaska:

[Jim Hunt]

I just noticed it's 3m mid Chukchi.

Just wind waves at the moment, but a significant swell is forecast to have developed in another day or so:

[Rodius]

Any ideas on what this storm will do to the ice?

[nadir]

In terms of refreeze, delaying it for a few days in the Western side I guess.

I am more concerned with the amount of Bering inflow that has been observed since July, and this storm will contribute dumping plenty of more Pacific Ocean water into the Arctic. Much of this water will sink down to the Pacific halocline, but some of this heat might slow down ice growth over Chukchi sea and prepare the stage for an earlier melting next year, especially if the weather is stormy this fall in that region.

The SST anomalies show an already overheated Chukchi sea, and this time I don’t think direct solar radiation is the culprit because it took quite a while for the Chukchi ice to retreat.

[nadir]

Rick Thoman on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/alaskawx/status/1571181521608015872?s=46&t=-5loIy5YRnVeTfOoz2fUCw

[Jim Hunt]

Rick must have been watching my Arctic alter ego!

Here's "her" latest Merbok missive:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1571222625321353219

[Steven]

Animation of Bremen 5-day medians:


3-day medians: https://i.imgur.com/IOe2IFn.gif

[Brigantine]

That's now 4 NWP routes "ice free" (3,4,5,6)

And CIS did a Chukchi chart today, showing the slightest intra-pack re-freeze to 75N
    (the orange area around big block A, as well as regions B, D, G)
and in northern Nares: intra-pack re-freeze in B, and open water re-freeze in C (is that Petermann Fjord?)
But no other re-freeze in any CIS charts

[Aluminium]

September 14-18.

2021.

[Jim Hunt]

But no other re-freeze in any CIS charts

However there is some apparent refreeze on AMSR2:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2022/09/the-2022-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-extent/#comment-640305

Unless that's an artifact of the recent inclement weather I reckon the die is cast.

[Jim Hunt]

That's now 4 NWP routes "ice free" (3,4,5,6)

What's more Amurborg recent carried commercial cargo via route 7, here spotted in the Hudson Strait on September 17th:

[oren]

By all counts the melting season should be over. NSIDC area has bottomed on Sep 13th, JAXA extent turned around a couple of days ago, and the date is late. The only wildcard is the coming Pacific storm, I am unable to evaluate the probability of it causing major damage to the ice in the ESS and Beaufort and that side of the CAB.

[Freegrass]

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

I think we can call it for this year, although not sure what'll happen on the Atlantic side in the coming days. Looks like it's gonna be very windy there, like it is all over the place. But I think the freezing has set in now, and we should be past the minimum now.

[Jim Hunt]

I think the freezing has set in now, and we should be past the minimum now.

However see also the humble opinion of my Arctic alter ego:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1571851081235169284

There's open water on the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean and a modest long distance swell has been generated.

What effect will it have on the sea ice in the ESS?

P.S. Now "liked" by the Norwegian Polar Institute 

[Jim Hunt]

What's more NSIDC daily extent is down from yesterday, albeit still above the prior minimum.

[Brigantine]

However there is some apparent refreeze on AMSR2

Since classified as grey ice by CIS (in the region north of C)

[Freegrass]

I think the freezing has set in now, and we should be past the minimum now.

However see also the humble opinion of my Arctic alter ego:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1571851081235169284

There's open water on the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean and a modest long distance swell has been generated.

What effect will it have on the sea ice in the ESS?

P.S. Now "liked" by the Norwegian Polar Institute 

You're probably right, but I don't think that warm water moves fast enough to beat the freezing temperatures below -10°C that are hitting the water in the Beaufort now. You can see in Aluminums animation that the water in between the Beaufort and ESS arms is starting to freeze.

And that warm water coming out of the Bering strait will also drop down underneath the mixing layer. So I don't think it'll have much effect.

The only ice that is still going to vanish is the last patch of last years MYI in the ESS. That's gonna get hit hard again by strong winds in the coming days, and so I don't it'll survive.

That ice patch does show us how strong MYI really is, and does show me why I was right last year that all that thick MYI that we had last season - combined with cloudy weather - was protecting the ice in the Chukchi sea from melting, and would give us a high minimum. It was a major factor in my reasoning last year.

We didn't have that protective arm of thick MYI this year, and so melting all that ice on the Pacific side was easy this season, even though we had very favorable weather this year for ice retention.

That arm with thick MYI that the beaufort gyre generated every year is now gone. Those happened before my time here, and it took very warm weather to melt them. This year proves that we don't need warm weather anymore to get a lot of melt on the Pacific side if we don't have that protective arm with thick MYI. It's a gamechanger...

Anyway... Here's an image with temperature on the Pacific side right now. It's freezing... But it's also gonna be very windy in the coming days. So Oren was right to wait to call the melting season over. I think it's gonna be up and down with extent in the coming days. Not sure if we could still go below the minimum set a few days ago, but I don't rule it out completely...

[oren]

Given today's JAXA increase, the melting season is statistically over. Barring a major surprise tomorrow we will switch over to the freezing thread.
What I find interesting this year is that despite the Laptev side all the way to the Pole being composed of FYI, the Laptev itself did not melt out, even while the FYI near the Pole became open water.

[oren]

Steven posts on the PIOMAS thread that:
The minimum occurred on 13 September 2022 and was 5059 km3.  That is the 10th lowest minimum on record.  Volume has been increasing in the last few days, to 5138 km3 on 17 September.

[Freegrass]

Given today's JAXA increase, the melting season is statistically over. Barring a major surprise tomorrow we will switch over to the freezing thread.
What I find interesting this year is that despite the Laptev side all the way to the Pole being composed of FYI, the Laptev itself did not melt out, even while the FYI near the Pole became open water.

That had a lot to do with the weather. The past few years we had early open water in the Laptev because of warm southern winds that hit the mountains there (not sure what they're called) and were directed towards the Laptev sea. That didn't happen early on in the season this year, and so the Laptev gap didn't open up soon enough to give the sun the time it needs to heat up the water there. And then later on the weather wasn't very favorable either.

The rubble more to the north happened because of the storms we had over it. That completely dispersed the ice there.

So much depends on the weather and where the ice gets pilled up. That's why winter is always a good indicator to know where melting will occur most, or least...

All in all it was another interesting season again, with cold weather like we had last year, but on a different icepack. And that taught me a lot again...

I dread the warm and sunny El Niño year with early open water in the Beaufort, Laptev, and EES, with no arm of thick MYI in the Chukchi sea, and topped off with a powerful August storm...

[Paul]

Given today's JAXA increase, the melting season is statistically over. Barring a major surprise tomorrow we will switch over to the freezing thread.
What I find interesting this year is that despite the Laptev side all the way to the Pole being composed of FYI, the Laptev itself did not melt out, even while the FYI near the Pole became open water.

That had a lot to do with the weather. The past few years we had early open water in the Laptev because of warm southern winds that hit the mountains there (not sure what they're called) and were directed towards the Laptev sea. That didn't happen early on in the season this year, and so the Laptev gap didn't open up soon enough to give the sun the time it needs to heat up the water there. And then later on the weather wasn't very favorable either.

The rubble more to the north happened because of the storms we had over it. That completely dispersed the ice there.

So much depends on the weather and where the ice gets pilled up. That's why winter is always a good indicator to know where melting will occur most, or least...

All in all it was another interesting season again, with cold weather like we had last year, but on a different icepack. And that taught me a lot again...

I dread the warm and sunny El Niño year with early open water in the Beaufort, Laptev, and EES, with no arm of thick MYI in the Chukchi sea, and topped off with a powerful August storm...

The Laptev did had a fast start to the melt season though with early open water developing but then things became stormy and colder so ice was spreading back again, possibly some compaction against the Islands also helped make the ice more resilient which we did not have during 2020/21 hence the ice free conditions.

The ice melt on the Pacific side has been impressive mind during the second half of the melt season, some ice managed to survive in the ESS but not an awful lot. Ice extent dropped a bit lower than I was expecting but if you take the average during the melt season then it was never threatening record lows at any point during the melt season which made a nice change.

The huge dispersion/open water to the 'right' of the pole is interesting and it's clearly a hidden reason why that area is vulnable to conditions developing like that in years which are more stormy. Its perhaps just fortunate there was a lack of southerly winds during August in the Barants because the SSTS were exceptionally above average and the ice edge could of definately hit that dispersed area but it got away with it in the end.

Onto refereeze now and early indications do suggest the Barants/Kara could take a while to freeze up(although the recent colder conditions have cooled the SSTS somewhat) whilst I think Hudson Bay could have another exceptionally slow freeze up like last year.

[be cause]

the next 7+ days challenge the Atl. front ; strong southerly winds and temps well above freezing causing melt of lying snow (gfs) and almost certainly a retreat north of the melting ice front . Barnets and Kara will take quite a while to refreeze .

[oren]

I am happy to report the 2022 melting season "officially" over. Further day to day comments best handled in the new freezing season thread. Feel free to post here season summaries, insights and hightlights.
It's been an interesting season, not much traditional melting weather to speak of at any point except the CAA heatwave, and yet extent fell nearly to 4.5M km2 (where some have predicted a finish above 5M). I think this highlights the weakness and vulnerability of the ice (and also the statistical difficulty of Arctic-wide persistent melting weather, which only comes about every few years or even once a decade).
Other highlight include the persistent storminess over the CAB in the early season, the persistent open water in that same location later (IMHO supported by some other factor and not just dispersal that failed to reverse), and the open Nares that was strongly exporting thick ice all year out of the Lincoln sea, something I am not sure is modelled well by volume models (PIOMAS, Hycom) due to grid resolution.

I also wish to thank all posters who contributed to the thread. Tracking the ice is a difficult job but using this thread makes it a very easy one. In addition, this forum has a very high level of knowledge and the various points of view all add up.
To all you lurkers out there, enjoy reading, don't be shy in participating.

[John Batteen]

Thanks for another great season of reading and learning everyone.

[Freegrass]

Arctic sea ice minimum ties for tenth lowest

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

On September 18, sea ice reached its annual minimum extent of 4.67 million square kilometers (1.80 million square miles), tying for tenth lowest with 2018 and 2017. In response to the setting sun and falling temperatures, ice extent has begun expanding and will continue through autumn and winter. However, a shift in wind patterns or a period of late season melt could still push the ice extent lower.

The minimum extent was reached four days later than the 1981 to 2010 median minimum date of September 14. The interquartile range of minimum dates is September 11 to September 19.

This year’s minimum set on September 18 was 1.28 million square kilometers (494,000 square miles) above the satellite-era record minimum extent of 3.39 million square kilometers (1.31 million square miles), which occurred on September 17, 2012 (Figure 2). It is also 1.55 million square kilometers (598,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average minimum extent, which is equivalent to twice the size of Texas.

In the 44-year-satellite record, 16 of the lowest minimums have all occurred in the last 16 years.

The overall, downward trend in the minimum extent from 1979 to 2022 is 12.6 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. The loss of sea ice is about 78,500 square kilometers (30,300 square miles) per year, equivalent to losing the size of the state of South Carolina or the country of Austria annually.

[baltic dweller]

Could someone generate full-season GIF for the 2021/22 season? P