Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: What's new in the Arctic ?  (Read 294920 times)

glennbuck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 439
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 133
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #550 on: August 29, 2020, 07:32:46 PM »
"Changes are occurring so rapidly during the summer months that sea ice is likely to disappear faster than most climate models have ever predicted. We must continue to closely monitor temperature changes and incorporate the right climate processes into these models," says Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen.

https://www.science.ku.dk/english/press/news/2020/new-study-warns-we-have-underestimated-the-pace-at-which-the-arctic-is-melting/?fbclid=IwAR1G4p-Rq3hiZWPOWOQORLr_qOpwOq5wPo9BXhlNAZNo-sAgHXv0h_DV9mU

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #551 on: September 02, 2020, 10:11:16 PM »
Bering Sea Ice Extent Is At Most Reduced State In At Least Last 5,500 Years
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-bering-sea-ice-extent-state.html

A newly published paper in the journal Science Advances describes how a peat core from St. Matthew Island is providing a look back in time. By analyzing the chemical composition of the core, which includes plant remains from 5,500 years ago to the present, scientists can estimate how sea ice in the region has changed during that time period.

"It's a small island in the middle of the Bering Sea, and it's essentially been recording what's happening in the ocean and atmosphere around it," said lead author Miriam Jones, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Jones worked as a faculty researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks when the project began in 2012.



The ancient sea ice record comes in the form of changes in the relative amounts of two isotopes of the element oxygen— oxygen-16 and oxygen-18. The ratio of those two isotopes changes depending on patterns in the atmosphere and ocean, reflecting the different signatures that precipitation has around the globe. More oxygen-18 makes for an isotopically "heavier" precipitation, more oxygen-16 makes precipitation "lighter."

By analyzing data from a model that tracks atmospheric movement using the isotopic signature of precipitation, the authors found that heavier precipitation originated from the North Pacific, while lighter precipitation originated from the Arctic.

A "heavy" ratio signals a seasonal pattern that causes the amount of sea ice to decrease. A "light" ratio indicates a season with more sea ice. That connection has been confirmed though sea ice satellite data collected since 1979, and to a smaller extent, through the presence of some microorganisms in previous core samples.

"What we've seen most recently is unprecedented in the last 5,500 years," said Matthew Wooller, director of the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility and a contributor to the paper. "We haven't seen anything like this in terms of sea ice in the Bering Sea."

Jones said the long-term findings also affirm that reductions in Bering Sea ice are due to more than recent higher temperatures associated with global warming. Atmospheric and ocean currents, which are also affected by climate change, play a larger role in the presence of sea ice.

"There's a lot more going on than simply warming temperatures," Jones said. "We're seeing a shift in circulation patterns both in the ocean and the atmosphere."





M.C. Jones el al., "High sensitivity of Bering Sea winter sea ice to winter insolation and carbon dioxide over the last 5500 years," Science Advances (2020).
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eaaz9588

... The substantial rate of anthropogenic CO2 inputs into the atmosphere over industrialization suggests that a loss in Bering Sea sea ice extent is accelerating or is already committed to complete sea ice loss as a result of delayed response to anthropogenic forcing. Low winter sea ice anomalies in CE 2018 and CE 2019 indicate future conditions that favor an ice-free Bering Sea. Widespread effects of Bering Sea winter sea ice loss are expected to occur. Ecosystem responses to low sea ice in CE 2018 included altered food webs that led to sea bird die-offs and may represent a harbinger of future low sea ice extent.

Further intensification of observed North Pacific influence in the Bering Sea leading to a reduction in sea ice can further affect heat transport to the Arctic Ocean basin. Although the Bering Strait throughflow may be relatively small (<1 Sv; 1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1), it can have a disproportionate influence on heatflux into the Arctic Ocean basin, and recent increases have been linked to weakening northerly winds (32), signifying enhanced winds originating from the North Pacific could amplify Arctic Ocean sea ice decline via increasing winds from the south.

Simultaneously, the increased frequency and duration of winter cyclones in the Arctic have led to the large reductions in freezing degree days in Arctic Ocean winters (33, 34). A loss of sea ice can also increase coastal erosion and increase land temperatures that result in permafrost thaw (35), further amplifying warming (36).
« Last Edit: September 02, 2020, 10:17:33 PM by vox_mundi »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

gerontocrat

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 20376
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 5289
  • Likes Given: 69
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #552 on: September 02, 2020, 10:29:01 PM »
This study links severely cold winters in North America to loss of sea ice in the Bering Sea.
The study also says that an ice-free Bering Sea in the future might not produce the same result.

Reading the previous post in conjunction with this study makes this writer wonder if the future may have already arrived.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/18/8069/348406/Severe-Cold-Winter-in-North-America-Linked-to
Quote
Abstract
North America experienced an intense cold wave with record low temperatures during the winter of 2017/18, at the time reaching the smallest rank of sea ice area (SIA) in the Bering Sea over the past four decades.

Using observations, ocean reanalysis, and atmospheric reanalysis data for 39 winters (1979/80–2017/18), both the Bering SIA loss and cold winters in North America are linked robustly via sea level pressure variations over Alaska detected as a dominant mode, the Alaska Oscillation (ALO). The ALO differs from previously identified atmospheric teleconnection and climate patterns. In the positive ALO, the equatorward cold airflow through the Bering Strait increases, resulting in surface air cooling over the Bering Sea and an increase in Bering SIA, as well as surface warming (about 4 K for the winter mean) for North America in response to a decrease of equatorward cold airflow, and vice versa for negative phase. The northerly winds with the cold air over the Bering Sea result in substantial heat release from ocean to atmosphere over open water just south of the region covered by sea ice.

Heating over the southern part of Bering Sea acts as a positive feedback for the positive ALO and its related large-scale atmospheric circulation in a linear baroclinic model experiment. Bering SIA shows no decreasing trend, but has remained small since 2015. CMIP6 climate models of the SSP5–8.5 scenario project a decrease of Bering SIA in the future climate. To explain severe cold winters in North America under global warming, it is necessary to get an understanding of climate systems with little or no sea ice.[/i]
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

ArcticMelt2

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 929
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 187
  • Likes Given: 37

glennbuck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 439
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 133
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #554 on: September 07, 2020, 03:20:37 PM »
Permafrost at Svalbard has entered the era of megamelt, and together with Russia’s Arctic coast, no other places on the earth warms faster. Also the sea ice in the surrounding Arctic Ocean experiences melting at a rate much faster than previous climate models predicted.

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/climate-crisis/2020/09/svalbard-experienced-hottest-summer-record?fbclid=IwAR1cM0t8lAGeuR5lW3FuTDZJkhA63kYVkNJBCYk9nYhgZOJIzf-lOiz79Zk

binntho

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2193
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 878
  • Likes Given: 235
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #555 on: September 14, 2020, 11:25:37 AM »
Climate change: Warmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf

The "Spalte" tongue of the Seventyninefjord (Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden) glacier has disintegrated:

Quote
Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden is roughly 80km long by 20km wide and is the floating front end of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream - where it flows off the land into the ocean to become buoyant.

At its leading edge, the 79N glacier splits in two, with a minor offshoot turning directly north. It's this offshoot, or tributary, called Spalte Glacier, that has now disintegrated.

Some of us have a strange fixation (or aversion) to tides, so perhaps this article about the tidal movement of the 79N glacier is of some interest, Tidal movement of Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glacier, northeast Greenland: observations and modelling

The tidal at the mouth of the fjord, at the comically named "Syge Moster" island (i.e. "Sick mothers sister's island"), was measured as being between 0.5 and 1 m each way.
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
St. Augustine, Confessions V, 6

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #556 on: September 14, 2020, 10:13:40 PM »
Arctic Transitioning to a New Climate State
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-arctic-transitioning-climate-state.html

New research by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) finds that the Arctic has now warmed so significantly that its year-to-year variability is moving outside the bounds of any past fluctuations, signaling the transition to a "new Arctic" climate regime.

"The rate of change is remarkable," said NCAR scientist Laura Landrum, the lead author of the study. "It's a period of such rapid change that observations of past weather patterns no longer show what you can expect next year. The Arctic is already entering a completely different climate than just a few decades ago."

In the new study, Landrum and her co-author, NCAR scientist Marika Holland, find that Arctic sea ice has melted so significantly in recent decades that even an unusually cold year will no longer have the amount of summer sea ice that existed as recently as the mid-20th century. Autumn and winter air temperatures will also warm enough to enter a statistically distinct climate by the middle of this century, followed by a seasonal change in precipitation that will result in additional months in which rain will fall instead of snow.

... Landrum and Holland applied statistical techniques to determine when climatic changes exceeded the bounds of natural variability. For this last question, they identified a different climate as emerging when the 10-year average was at least two standard deviations away from the average of the climate in the decade 1950-59.

In other words, if the sea ice extent changed so much that the average in, say, the 1990s was lower in 97.7% of all cases than the sea ice extent for any year in the 1950s, then the 1990s were defined as a new climate.

When they applied these techniques to sea ice extent, they found that the Arctic has already entered a new climate. Each of the five models showed sea ice retreating so dramatically that a new climate for sea ice had emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Looking forward, they also found that the Arctic may start to experience largely ice-free conditions in the next several decades. Several of the models indicated that the Arctic could become mostly ice free for 3-10 months annually by the end of the century, based on a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions.

They found that the air temperatures over the ocean will enter a new climate during the first half or middle of this century, with air temperatures over land warming substantially later in the century.

The seasonal cycle of precipitation will change dramatically by the middle of the century. If emissions persist at a high level, most continental regions will experience an increase in the rainy season of 20-60 days by mid-century and 60-90 days by the end of the century. In some Arctic regions, rain may occur any month of the year by century's end.

Extremes become routine in an emerging new Arctic, Nature Climate Change (2020).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0892-z
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

glennbuck

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 439
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 133
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #557 on: September 16, 2020, 01:45:30 PM »
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/climate/arctic-changing-climate.html

The effects of global warming in the Arctic are so severe that the region is shifting to a different climate, one characterized less by ice and snow and more by open water and rain, scientists said Monday.

Already, they said, sea ice in the Arctic has declined so much that even an extremely cold year would not result in as much ice as was typical decades ago. Two other characteristics of the region’s climate, seasonal air temperatures and the number of days of rain instead of snow, are shifting in the same way, the researchers said.

The Arctic is among the parts of the world most influenced by climate change, with sharply rising temperatures, thawing permafrost and other effects in addition to shrinking sea ice. The study, by Laura Landrum and Marika M. Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., is an effort to put what is occurring in the region in context.

Juan C. García

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3359
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1279
  • Likes Given: 1127
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #558 on: September 17, 2020, 11:30:22 AM »
A new route through the Arctic?
Why not directly to the North Pole?

Quote
The opening of the Transpolar Sea Route: Logistical, geopolitical, environmental, and socioeconomic impacts
Mia M.Bennett, Scott R.Stephenson, KangYang, Michael T.Bravo, Bert De Jonghe

Highlights
• A seasonal ice-free shipping route via the North Pole may open by mid-century.

• The Transpolar Sea Route (TSR) is shorter and deeper than the Northern Sea Route.

• Development options include transshipment ports in the Bering and Fram Straits.

• The TSR's environmental and socioeconomic impacts could be locally significant.

• Despite rapid climate change, there is still time to prepare for the TSR's opening.

Quote
Abstract

With current scientific models forecasting an ice-free Central Arctic Ocean (CAO) in summer by mid-century and potentially earlier, a direct shipping route via the North Pole connecting markets in Asia, North America, and Europe may soon open. The Transpolar Sea Route (TSR) would represent a third Arctic shipping route in addition to the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage. In response to the continued decline of sea ice thickness and extent and growing recognition within the Arctic and global governance communities of the need to anticipate and regulate commercial activities in the CAO, this paper examines: (i) the latest estimates of the TSR's opening; (ii) scenarios for its commercial and logistical development, addressing the various transportation systems that could evolve; (iii) the geopolitics of the TSR, focusing on international and national regulations and the roles of Russia, a historic power in the Arctic, and China, an emerging one; and (iv) the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of transpolar shipping for local and Indigenous residents of communities along the TSR's entrances. Our analysis seeks to inform national and international policymaking with regard to the TSR because although climate change is proceeding rapidly, within typical policymaking timescales, there is still time to prepare for the emergence of the new Arctic shipping corridor.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308597X2030453X?via%3Dihub
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #559 on: September 17, 2020, 07:53:33 PM »
    Nice catch Juan.
    Some pithy quotes of particular interest to ASIF. 
     
     SIT = Sea Ice Thickness
    "Declines in SIT are particularly relevant for transpolar shipping, as the measure is a chief determinant of the type of polar class (PC) vessel required in ice-covered waters.  Like sea ice  extent, SIT has been declining: at the North Pole, while average SIT was ~4 m between 1958–1976, by 2011–2017, it dropped to <1 m. "

        CAO = Central Arctic Ocean
       "Commercial shipping will  require robust forecasts meeting more stringent criteria, such  as  the IPCC’s definition of “nearly ice-free conditions” when sea ice extent dips below 1 million km2 for at least five consecutive years, or seasonal benchmarks of 90 days or more of operational accessibility in the CAO.  In the near term, making such forecasts may prove challenging since sea ice variability is projected to grow substantially even as its total amount declines.  Nevertheless, in the  long term – i.e. by mid-century and more certainly by 2100 – ice-free summers are ex-pected to occur regularly, promising greater predictability for shipping lines."

      "The CAO may be ice-free in summer as soon as the 2040s, setting in motion the seasonal opening of the TSR.  Even if this sea change does not immediately reconfigure global shipping networks, already perceptible increases in the region’s economic activity suggest that preparations are in order."

     "...[T]he environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the TSR will be more acute at local rather than regional or global scales. While the shipping route promises new avenues for economic development, it may jeopardize the health of coastal ecosystems and vitality of subsistence activities.  Although the CAO is uninhabited, thousands of people live in communities along the Bering Strait, in Svalbard, and in northeast Ice-land where transshipment ports may be constructed and where large vessels could one day dock.  Particularly along the Bering Strait, com-mercial shipping threatens subsistence whaling, sealing, and fishing.  Empowering Indigenous and local communities to exercise stakeholder rights and participate in maritime policy forums for Arctic shipping while minimizing the industry’s negative impacts – and, if possible, finding a  way  that  development of the TSR could provide tangible benefits – is crucial."

     "Yet regardless of the ultimate extent of the TSR’s commercialization, the moment at which the Arctic becomes ice-free will mark a profound turning point in human and environmental history.  As warming and melting accelerate, regions like the Arctic that “had for centuries dramatized the fragility of human life have, in a few short decades, been refigured as representing the earth’s profound vulnerability to collective human agency”.  The increasing accessibility of the TSR epitomizes the  ambivalence of changes to the Arctic in the Anthropocene.  While the opening of a truly trans-Arctic shipping route is a symbol of mankind’s greater freedom of navigation, it also presents a stark reminder of the social and environ-mental costs of this freedom, the conditions that have given rise to it, and the sudden transience of a long-frozen region."
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 08:35:37 PM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #560 on: September 17, 2020, 07:55:37 PM »
     Which led to this:  J.R. Mioduszewski, S. Vavrus, M. Wang, M. Holland, L. Landrum, Past and future interannual variability in Arctic sea ice in coupled climate models, Cryosphere 13 (2019) 113–124, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-113-2019

     Abstract (bolding added and format edited slightly for clarity)

    "The diminishing Arctic sea ice pack has been widely studied, but previous research has mostly focused on time-mean changes in sea ice rather than on short-term variations that also have important physical and societal consequences. In this study we test the hypothesis that future interannual Arctic sea ice area variability will increase by utilizing 40 independent simulations from the Community Earth System Model's Large Ensemble (CESM-LE) for the 1920–2100 period and augment this with simulations from 12 models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5).

     Both CESM-LE and CMIP5 models project that ice area variability will indeed grow substantially but not monotonically in every month. There is also a strong seasonal dependence in the magnitude and timing of future variability increases that is robust among CESM ensemble members.

     The variability generally correlates with the average ice retreat rate, before there is an eventual disappearance in both terms as the ice pack becomes seasonal in summer and autumn by late century. The peak in variability correlates best with the total area of ice between 0.2 and 0.6 m monthly thickness, indicating that substantial future thinning of the ice pack is required before variability maximizes. Within this range, the most favorable thickness for high areal variability depends on the season, especially whether ice growth or ice retreat processes dominate.

     Our findings suggest that thermodynamic melting (top, bottom, lateral) and growth (frazil, congelation) processes are more important than dynamical mechanisms, namely ice export and ridging, in controlling ice area variability."

     Graphic below is mean ice area from CESM model ensemble.  Of course this paper was written way back in 2018  8).  I think the Wipneus linear Volume trend projection for zero September minimum ASI by 2032 is a better predictor than the climate models which have been routinely late in their Arctic sea ice decline estimates.  No volume = no area.  But that's for another thread!
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 08:30:54 PM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

Juan C. García

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3359
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1279
  • Likes Given: 1127
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #561 on: September 17, 2020, 08:40:03 PM »
    Nice catch Juan.
The truth is that I read it first in NSIDC Analysis. I have to acknowledge them.

Quote
A recent paper by an international group led by political geographer Mia Bennett at the University of Hong Kong discusses the potential impacts of the near-future emergence of a transpolar shipping route as sea ice retreat continues to open a very wide shipping lane along the Eurasian side of the Arctic Ocean (as it has this year). The route would pass over the North Pole as a way of avoiding an extensive Russian exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and still-contended continental shelf claim.

This emerging transpolar route reflects a fundamentally changed Arctic environment. Another recent paper by researchers Laura Landrum and Marika Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that the Arctic has indeed entered into a “new Arctic climate” state. This new climate is one characterized by warmer temperatures, more open water, less sea ice, more rain, and less snow. In the Arctic, weather that used to be considered extreme is becoming the norm. The summer of 2020 is clearly representative of this new Arctic.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2020/09/suddenly-in-second-place/
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #562 on: September 18, 2020, 07:32:10 AM »
Wildfires in Arctic Circle release record amounts of greenhouse gases - BBC News

5 minute video, gives a ground level view of Siberia and some of the folks who live there.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2020, 11:23:58 AM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #563 on: September 18, 2020, 08:37:57 AM »
Sea ice Triggered the Little Ice Age, Finds a New Study
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-sea-ice-triggered-age.html


The map shows Greenland and adjacent ocean currents. Colored circles show where some of the sediment cores used in the study were obtained from the seafloor. The small historical map from the beginning of the 20th century shows the distribution of Storis, or sea ice from the Arctic Ocean, which flows down the east coast of Greenland. The graphs show the reconstructed time series of changes in the occurrence of sea ice and polar waters in the past. The colors of the curves correspond to the locations on the map. The blue shading represents the period of increased sea ice in the 1300s.

A new study finds a trigger for the Little Ice Age that cooled Europe from the 1300s through mid-1800s, and supports surprising model results suggesting that under the right conditions sudden climate changes can occur spontaneously, without external forcing.

The study, published in Science Advances, reports a comprehensive reconstruction of sea ice transported from the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait, by Greenland, and into the North Atlantic Ocean over the last 1400 years. The reconstruction suggests that the Little Ice Age—which was not a true ice age but a regional cooling centered on Europe—was triggered by an exceptionally large outflow of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic in the 1300s.

While previous experiments using numerical climate models showed that increased sea ice was necessary to explain long-lasting climate anomalies like the Little Ice Age, physical evidence was missing. This study digs into the geological record for confirmation of model results.

Researchers pulled together records from marine sediment cores drilled from the ocean floor from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic to get a detailed look at sea ice throughout the region over the last 1400 years. ...  The cores were detailed enough to detect abrupt (decadal scale) changes in sea ice and ocean conditions over time.

The records indicate an abrupt increase in Arctic sea ice exported to the North Atlantic starting around 1300, peaking in midcentury, and ending abruptly in the late 1300s.

... Climate models called "control models" are run to understand how the climate system works through time without being influenced by outside forces like volcanic activity or greenhouse gas emissions. A set of recent control model experiments included results that portrayed sudden cold events that lasted several decades. The model results seemed too extreme to be realistic—so-called Ugly Duckling simulations—and researchers were concerned that they were showing problems with the models.

Miles' study found that there may be nothing wrong with those models at all.

"We actually find that number one, we do have physical, geological evidence that these several decade-long cold sea ice excursions in the same region can, in fact do, occur," he said. In the case of the Little Ice Age, "what we reconstructed in space and time was strikingly similar to the development in an Ugly Duckling model simulation, in which a spontaneous cold event lasted about a century. It involved unusual winds, sea ice export, and a lot more ice east of Greenland, just as we found in here." The provocative results show that external forcing from volcanoes or other causes may not be necessary for large swings in climate to occur. Miles continued, "These results strongly suggest...that these things can occur out of the blue due to internal variability in the climate system."

The marine cores also show a sustained, far-flung pulse of sea ice near the Norse colonies on Greenland coincident with their disappearance in the 15th century. A debate has raged over why the colonies vanished, usually agreeing only that a cooling climate pushed hard on their resilience. Miles and his colleagues would like to factor in the oceanic changes nearby: very large amounts of sea ice and cold polar waters, year after year for nearly a century.

"This massive belt of ice that comes streaming out of the Arctic—in the past and even today—goes all the way around Cape Farewell to around where these colonies were," Miles said. He would like to look more closely into oceanic conditions along with researchers who study the social sciences in relation to climate.

Martin W. Miles et al, Evidence for extreme export of Arctic sea ice leading the abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age, Science Advances (2020)
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eaba4320
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Hefaistos

  • Guest
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #564 on: September 18, 2020, 11:22:39 AM »
Thanks Vox, very interesting!

Wikipedia lists the following possible causes of LIA:
Scientists have tentatively identified seven possible causes of the Little Ice Age: orbital cycles; decreased solar activity /the Maunder Minimum/; increased volcanic activity; altered ocean current flows;[82] fluctuations in the human population in different parts of the world causing reforestation, or deforestation; and the inherent variability of global climate.

What these model simulations show, is that the cause could actually have been the last one, natural variability. Supposedly the other things that are 100% known to have happened in the relevant time-frame were not excluded from the runs, such as the bottomed out solar activity and the volcanism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Possible_causes

gerontocrat

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 20376
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 5289
  • Likes Given: 69
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #565 on: September 18, 2020, 05:01:32 PM »
I was listening to a woman on BBC Radio 4 on how she deals with depression.

One escape route for her is to chill out watching the 24/7 Webcam from The Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary (WISGS) - "one of the largest gathering places in the world for Pacific Walruses. The most popular haul-out in the WISGS is Round Island, where the walrus cam is located on Main Beach. Please enjoy watching up to 15,000 of these massive marine mammals with Explore's live video feed from walrus cam." https://www.alaskacenters.gov/explore/attractions/multimedia/webcams/round-island-walrus

"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

Hefaistos

  • Guest
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #566 on: September 19, 2020, 10:15:42 AM »
I was listening to a woman on BBC Radio 4 on how she deals with depression.


If she also felt the smell from those creatures, she would surely have a depressive relapse.

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #567 on: September 22, 2020, 11:12:51 PM »
Russia's New Icebreaker, The World's Largest, Is Heading To The Arctic For The First Time
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36637/russias-new-icebreaker-the-worlds-largest-is-heading-to-the-arctic-for-the-first-time



Arktika, the first of Russia's new nuclear-powered Project 22220 icebreakers, the largest and most powerful such ship in the world at present, has set sail for its future homeport in Murmansk with plans to plow through ice in the Arctic before it arrives there. However, only two of the ship's three engines are presently working, raising questions about just how close it really is to fully entering operational service.

Rosatom says that Arktika will sail in the Arctic north of Franz Josef Land, a Russian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, and test out its ability to break through ice before turning south and heading to Murmansk. The entire trip will take approximately two weeks. Franz Josef Land notably includes Alexandra Land, an island that is home to Russia's northernmost military outpost, which has seen significant expansion this year.



Russia is the only country, at present, to operate nuclear-powered icebreakers and Project 22220s are powered by two RITM-200 pressurized water reactors, each rated at 175 megawatts, which supply electricity to three electric motors, each driving a single propeller. It is expected to be able to break through ice up to seven feet thick (2 meters).



Arktika and her future sister ships certainly do reflect the Russian government's significant Arctic ambitions and its position as the largest single operator of icebreakers in the world. Increasing geopolitical competition in the far north, driven in part by global climate change making it easier to access the region and its lucrative natural resources, from oil to fish, has shown a light on this disparity, particularly in the United States.



... This is not a particularly new issue. On Sept. 21, Dr Elizabeth Buchanan a lecturer on strategic studies at the Australian Defense College and a fellow at the The Modern War Institute at the United States Military Academy, Tweeted a portion of a 1972 document found in the CIA Records Search Tool (CREST) archives discussing the implications of America's small icebreaking fleets and how embarrassing it would be if one of those ships were to break down and get stuck in thick ice, requiring rescue from a Soviet icebreaker.

https://mobile.twitter.com/BuchananLiz/status/1307932348751593472
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #568 on: September 24, 2020, 06:46:20 PM »
Island-building in Southeast Asia Created Earth's Northern Ice Sheets
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-island-building-southeast-asia-earth-northern.html

The Greenland ice sheet owes its existence to the growth of an arc of islands in Southeast Asia—stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea—over the last 15 million years, a new study claims.

According to an analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara and a research institute in Toulouse, France, as the Australian continent pushed these volcanic islands out of the ocean, the rocks were exposed to rain mixed with carbon dioxide, which is acidic. Minerals within the rocks dissolved and washed with the carbon into the ocean, consuming enough carbon dioxide to cool the planet and allow for large ice sheets to form over North America and Northern Europe.

"You have the continental crust of Australia bulldozing into these volcanic islands, giving you really high mountains just south of the equator," said Nicholas Swanson-Hysell, associate professor of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study. "So, you have this big increase of land area that is quite steep, in a region where it's warm and wet and a lot of rock types that have the ability to naturally sequester carbon."

Starting about 15 million years ago, this tropical mountain-building drew down carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decreasing the strength of the greenhouse effect and cooling the planet. By about 3 million years ago, Earth's temperature was cool enough to allow snow and ice to remain through the summer and grow into huge ice sheets over the Northern Hemisphere, like that covering Greenland today.

Once Northern Hemisphere ice sheets grew, other climate dynamics led to a cycle of glacial maxima and minima every 40,000 to 100,000 years. At the most recent glacial maximum, about 15,000 years ago, massive ice sheets covered most of Canada, the northern portions of the U.S., as well as Scandinavia and much of the British Isles.

"If it wasn't for the carbon sequestration that's happening in the Southeast Asian islands, we wouldn't have ended up with the climate that includes a Greenland ice sheet and these glacial and interglacial cycles," ... "We wouldn't have crossed this atmospheric CO2 threshold to initiate Northern Hemisphere ice sheets."



Based on their model, chemical weathering in the Southeast Asian islands alone diminished CO2 levels from more than 500 parts per million (ppm) 15 million years ago to approximately 400 ppm 5 million years ago and, finally, to pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm. Fossil fuel-burning has now raised the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 411 ppm—"A process that took millions of years we have reversed in 100 years."

... While the threshold for Arctic glaciation is estimated to be about 280 ppm of carbon dioxide, the threshold for ice sheet formation at the South Pole is much higher: about 750 ppm. That's why the Antarctic ice sheets began forming much earlier, about 34 million years ago, than those in the Arctic. ...

Yuem Park el al., "Emergence of the Southeast Asian islands as a driver for Neogene cooling," PNAS (2020)
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/23/2011033117
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tom_Mazanec

  • Guest
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #569 on: September 24, 2020, 07:03:09 PM »
So if we manage to get CO2e past 750 ppm Antarctica melts to the bedrock and the seas rise 70 meters or more?

Tor Bejnar

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 4606
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 879
  • Likes Given: 826
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #570 on: September 24, 2020, 09:17:19 PM »
Gosh, Tom, that happens and I will have to move (or grow gills). (My house is about 50 meters above the current sea level.)

(But only if reincarnation is a thing will I have to worry about it.  Ah, the advantages of not being Methuselah.)
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #571 on: September 24, 2020, 09:35:59 PM »
So if we manage to get CO2e past 750 ppm Antarctica melts to the bedrock and the seas rise 70 meters or more?
     70 meters will take a long while, but if 3.3 meters floats your boat that can happen at just  650ppm held steady long enough according to a study published yesterday.
 
      Study out yesterday found that eventually West Antarctic Ice Sheet is drinkable at 2.36C above preindustrial.  IPPC 2014 CO2 and Temp tables for RCP8.5 (closest analog to path we are currently on) put 2.36C at about 650 ppm CO2.  Quick skim of article did not find any timeline should that occur, and they take pain to say their report is NOT a projection or forecast.  Based on Deconto and Pollard 2016 simulation, my guess is that to reach that new equilibrium would take 100 years or more.  Then again, who's to say we would stop at 650ppm CO2 (even less likely for 650 ppm CO2e)?
   
     (Speaking of Dec and Poll 2016, the new paper does NOT account for their proposed ice cliff instability, which apparently is still being debated for validity.  If it does apply, then it seems the new study's melt rates would be underestimates by leaving it out.  On the other hand, the new paper mentions both negative and postive feedbacks that could affect this new disaster scenario.) 

     See animated simulation posted yesterday by Potsdam Institute: 
The Hysteresis of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Sep 23, 2020


Journal article - The hysteresis of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Julius Garbe, Torsten Albrecht, Anders Levermann, Jonathan F. Donges & Ricarda Winkelmann
Nature volume 585, pages538–544(2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2727-5
    New (to me) term - "Creep instability"   Good fit for the times.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2020, 12:14:29 AM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

be cause

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2441
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1012
  • Likes Given: 1034
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #572 on: September 24, 2020, 09:36:34 PM »
wow .. that is funny Tor .. the last post I just read included the line ..
  ''If NDE is a guide we've picked these situations for a purpose. It's also not our first time, or our last.''
 .. a little wisdom from vox-mundi to me back on 02.02.2020 .. b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #573 on: September 25, 2020, 09:58:54 PM »
Journal article - The hysteresis of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Julius Garbe, Torsten Albrecht, Anders Levermann, Jonathan F. Donges & Ricarda Winkelmann
Nature volume 585, pages538–544(2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2727-5
    New (to me) term - "Creep instability"   Good fit for the times.

"The Graduate" updated for 2020:
Mr. McGuire:  I want to say one two words to you. Just one two words.

Benjamin:  Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire:  Are you listening?

Benjamin:  Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.  Creep Instability.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2020, 12:58:37 AM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #574 on: September 28, 2020, 03:54:14 PM »
Phytoplankton found to begin growing in Baffin Bay as early as February
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-phytoplankton-baffin-bay-early-february.html


Annual cycles of phytoplankton biomass

A small international team of researchers has found that phytoplankton resumes growing in Baffin Bay as early as February.

For many years there has been a consensus among marine biologists: phytoplankton ceases growing during the early winter in the Arctic Ocean when ice forms and does not resume growing until the ice melts in the spring. Then when the ice does finally melt, the phytoplankton are thought to explode with growth. In this new effort, the researchers have found that such thinking has been wrong. Phytoplankton can start growing even before the ice above it begins to melt.

... This observation suggests that the explosive growth seen when the ice finally melts is not as explosive as has been thought—the phytoplankton has already been growing for months. The group describes the results in their paper published in the journal Science Advances.


Environmental constraints of Arctic phytoplankton throughout the year.

Achim Randelhoff et al. Arctic mid-winter phytoplankton growth revealed by autonomous profilers, Science Advances (2020)
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/39/eabc2678
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #575 on: October 02, 2020, 01:00:00 AM »
The Navy Is Building A Network Of Drone Submarines And Sensor Buoys In The Arctic
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36821/the-navy-is-building-a-network-of-drone-submarines-and-sensor-buoys-in-the-arctic

The U.S. Navy has awarded the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution a contract worth more than $12 million to develop unmanned undersea vehicles and buoys, along with a networked communications and data sharing infrastructure to link them all together. The project is ostensibly focused on developing a overall system to support enhanced monitoring of environmental changes in the Arctic for scientific purposes. However, it's not hard to see how this work could be at least a stepping stone to the creation of a wide-area persistent underwater surveillance system in this increasingly strategic region. 

The Pentagon announced the award of the contract in a daily notice on Sept. 29, 2020. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is managing what is officially called the Arctic Mobile Observing System (AMOS), which is also described as an "Innovative Naval Prototype" effort.

ONR envisions the AMOS prototype as consisting of various kinds of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), including fully-autonomous types, along with fixed sensors. All of this would be tied together through a series of communications and data sharing nodes, suspended underwater underneath buoys installed on the surface of the ice. "AMOS will be designed to persist/endure for 12 months, have a sensing footprint goal of 100 km [approximately 62 miles] from the central node and have 2-way Arctic communications (vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to node and node to shore)," according to an official project website.


https://www.onr.navy.mil/en/Science-Technology/Departments/Code-32/all-programs/arctic-global-prediction/AMOS-DRI

The primarily publicly-stated goal of the AMOS program, which began in 2018, is provide a means of readily monitoring and assessing what is going on underneath the ice in the Arctic across broad areas. Receding ice and other environmental changes in the region as a result of global climate change has led to increased U.S. military activities in the region and prompted a new demand to better understand what is going on above and below the surface. Just being able to predict when and where significant amounts of ice will develop, or recede, which can be influenced by underwater conditions, such as water temperature, could have significant impacts on naval operations in the far north.



It's also worth noting that AMOS is the latest in a series of research efforts aimed at addressing these challenges that ONR conducted since 2011. The proposed overall architecture for this new prototype system is, in fact, very similar to the one developed for the Stratified Ocean Dynamics in the Arctic (SODA) experiment in the Beaufort Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean, which concluded last year.


https://www.onr.navy.mil/Science-Technology/Departments/Code-32/all-programs/arctic-global-prediction/SODA-DRI

ONR has indicated in the past that there are a number of "leap ahead technological goals" that will be necessary to achieve first in order for the system to work as intended.



These technological milestones include the development of UUVs and buoys that can withstand the extremely cold conditions in the region for extended periods of time. There is also a requirement for an "under-ice acoustic navigation system" to make up for the fact that UUVs operating deep under the ice will find it difficult, if not impossible to utilize GPS. Satellite coverage in the Arctic is limited, in general, which also limits access to satellite navigation and communications and data sharing networks.

"You can go out there and you can put your sensors in the ice, but a lot of times they’ll fail," Harper added. "And they’ll fail because they’ll get crushed in the ice or tipped over or toppled by changing ice conditions. And so the ability to deploy a buoy that is robust enough to survive the sea ice is one of the technological hurdles to doing this."

A system that networks together a fleet of UUVs, together with an array of fixed sensor and communication nodes for the purposes of monitoring activity underwater would also seem readily adaptable to other roles, such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in Arctic waters, especially with regards to foreign submarine operations. Just being able to provide U.S. military commanders and American intelligence agencies with additional basic situational awareness of what's happening under the ice, as well as above it, could be a major boon.

... “We have significant domain awareness challenges, and that really begins in the high latitudes,” retired Admiral Paul Zukunft, who was previously the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, told a gathering at the 2020 Defense News Conference earlier in September. “Things start to get pretty dark once you get up higher than 72 degrees north.”

"We sent a national security cutter to patrol that region in a relatively ice-free portion of the season," he continued. "And we stumbled upon a joint exercise between Russia and China. Our intelligence community did not have awareness that this was going on. So we were the originators of this information and otherwise we would not have known. We need to continue to invest in domain awareness."

http://www.hisutton.com/Ru_Arctic.html

... Russia is reportedly working on various projects in this vein in the Arctic, including potential underwater facilities and nuclear reactors to power them, that are again ostensibly for research purposes, but could easily have military applications. The Chinese have also established underwater monitoring stations, officially for scientific research, in the Pacific that could also be used to collect information about the goings and comings of foreign submarines and other vessels.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #576 on: October 04, 2020, 04:46:22 PM »
New Russian Nuclear Powered Icebreaker Reaches the North Pole
https://www.mk.ru/social/2020/10/03/novyy-rossiyskiy-atomnyy-ledokol-dostig-severnogo-polyusa.html

Project 22220 Nuclear Icebreaker "Arktika" reached the North Pole on October 3 at 18:00 Moscow time. The icebreaker built at the Baltic Shipyard made a two-week transit from St. Petersburg to Murmansk, and then to the North Pole. According to Baltic Shipyard press release, after returning to Murmansk, the ship will be handed over to it's customer - Rosatom.

... Project 22220 Icebreakers will be able to conduct convoys of ships in the Arctic, including ships carrying hydrocarbons from the fields of the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas, and the shelf of the Kara Sea, to the Asia-Pacific region.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

FredBear

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 441
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 67
  • Likes Given: 42
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #577 on: October 12, 2020, 09:49:10 PM »
Maybe rather "New out of the Arctic" - Polarstern:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54515518

Positive retroaction

  • New ice
  • Posts: 51
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 29
  • Likes Given: 160
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #578 on: October 15, 2020, 12:20:21 PM »
Have you seen the risk on SSW in the next weeks? Is that risk serious?
Sorry, excuse my bad english

dnem

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 709
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 319
  • Likes Given: 278
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #579 on: October 16, 2020, 11:30:23 PM »
I don't think I've seen this new Jennifer Francis paper referenced on the ASIF:
https://www.woodwellclimate.org/why-has-no-new-record-minimum-arctic-sea-ice-extent-occurred-since-september-2012/

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047
Abstract
One of the clearest indicators of human-caused climate change is the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice. The summer minimum coverage is now approximately half of its extent only 40 years ago. Four records in the minimum extent were broken since 2000, the most recent occurring in September 2012. No new records have been set since then, however, owing to an abrupt atmospheric shift during each August/early-September that brought low sea-level pressure, cloudiness, and unfavorable wind conditions for ice reduction. While random variability could be the cause, we identify a recently increased prevalence of a characteristic large-scale atmospheric pattern over the northern hemisphere. This pattern is associated not only with anomalously low pressure over the Arctic during summer, but also with frequent heatwaves over East Asia, Scandinavia, and northern North America, as well as the tendency for a split jet stream over the continents. This jet-stream configuration has been identified as favoring extreme summer weather events in northern mid-latitudes. We propose a mechanism linking these features with diminishing spring snow cover on northern-hemisphere continents that acts as a negative feedback on the loss of Arctic sea ice during summer.

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #580 on: October 26, 2020, 01:43:58 AM »
Russia's Test of Nuclear-Powered Icebreaker Fails As There's Not Enough Arctic Ice to Test It On
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-rest-nuclear-powered-icebreaker-fails-not-enough-arctic-ice-1541328

Russia has failed to complete tests on its newest nuclear-powered icebreaker—the largest of its kind in the world—as there was not enough ice in the Arctic to carry out the trials.

The Arktika icebreaker set off on its maiden voyage to the Arctic in September and returned to the city of Murmansk on October 12. ... At almost 600 foot long and 170 foot high, it is thought to be the most powerful icebreakers ever constructed. ... The icebreaker's 4,900 nautical mile trip was intended to test the ship's capabilities and to look at the region's commercial potential.

... State-run news agency Tass said on Monday that Arktika had completed its first voyage, having traveled through approximately 1,030 miles of ice. However, the ice was too thin for the ship's capabilities to be fully tested, Arktika Delivery Team Captain Oleg Shchapin told the agency.

"The ice tests are still ahead, probably, this year because now the ice trials did not work with an ice of 1.1 [to] 1.2 meters (3.6 and 3.9 feet) thick. It was thin and loose and the icebreaker did not get any resistance. We tried to find an ice floe three meters (9.8 feet) thick but to no avail," he is quoted as saying.

---------------------------------------

Arctic Sea Ice Has Still Not Formed in Siberia — the Latest Date on Record
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/arctic-sea-ice-has-still-not-formed-in-siberia-the-latest-date-on-record



... Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result, there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic.

“The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #581 on: October 27, 2020, 01:36:47 PM »
Two New Studies Substantially Advance Understanding of Currents That Help Regulate Climate
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-substantially-advance-currents-climate.html


Schematic of circulation in the Nordic Seas shows the pathways of warm, saline inflow (red arrows) and cold, dense outflow (green arrows). Abbreviations include: East Greenland Current (EGC); Iceland-Faroe Slope Jet (IFSJ); Norwegian Atlantic Current (NAC); North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC), and North Icelandic Jet (NIJ). Credit: Huang et al (2020)

Two studies available online in Nature Communications shed new light on a critical driver of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), sometimes known as the "ocean conveyor belt." Together, these give greater insight into the northern origins of the AMOC and potential impacts of warming on regions of the North Atlantic that are critical to this system of currents.

One study, led by Jie Huang, a former guest student at WHOI and currently a researcher at Tsinghua University in China, found that a common source supplies the pathways of the coldest and densest water in the AMOC. Huang arrived at this conclusion by using a new method known as "sigma-pi distance" to analyze a historical set of oceanographic data that includes the temperature and salinity of water samples collected in the region since the 1980s. In doing so, Huang was able to trace the water spilling over the Greenland-Scotland Ridge on the seafloor and into the North Atlantic via the Denmark Strait and the Faroe Bank Channel back to the same location in the Greenland Sea.

This flow of deep water is formed as surface waters in the region cool, releasing heat to the atmosphere, becoming colder and denser. Scientists have long suspected that warming in in the Arctic and North Atlantic could disrupt the formation of this deep water formation, causing the AMOC to change or weaken and cause significant changes to regional and global climate patterns.

Huang also found in his analysis that the location of deep water formation in the Greenland Sea has shifted since the 1980s from the periphery of the slowly turning counter-clockwise circulation—known as the Greenland Sea Gyre—to the center, where it is today.

"Where and how dense water is formed in the Nordic Seas is likely to change in a warming climate," said Huang. "This could affect the composition and the pathways of the dense water supplying the overflows."

The other paper, led by University of Bergen physical oceanographer and former WHOI guest student Stefanie Semper used four independent sets of observations to provide clear evidence of a previously unknown current following the seafloor slope between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. This so-called Iceland-Faroe Slope Jet supplies as much as half of the water overflowing the Greenland-Scotland Ridge into the North Atlantic via the Faroe Bank Channel, making it a major component of the overturning circulation in the region.

Jie Huang et al. Sources and upstream pathways of the densest overflow water in the Nordic Seas, Nature Communications (2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19050-y

Stefanie Semper et al. The Iceland-Faroe Slope Jet: a conduit for dense water toward the Faroe Bank Channel overflow, Nature Communications (2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19049-5
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #582 on: October 27, 2020, 06:00:52 PM »
0.2 Degrees C Locked In: Ice Loss Due to Warming Leads to Warming Due to Ice Loss: A Vicious Circle
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-ice-loss-due-vicious-circle.html



The loss of huge ice masses can contribute to the warming that is causing this loss and further risks. A new study now quantifies this feedback by exploring long-term if-then scenarios. If the Arctic summer sea ice were to melt completely, a scenario that is likely to become reality at least temporarily within this century, this could eventually add roughly 0.2 degrees C to global warming. It is, however, not in addition to IPCC projections of future warming, since these already take the relevant mechanisms into account. Still, the scientists have now separated the effects of the ice loss from other effects and quantified it.

The 0.2 degrees C rise is substantial, given that global mean temperature is currently about one degree higher than in pre-industrial times, and governments worldwide have agreed to stop the increase well below two degrees.

"This is not a short-term risk. Earth's ice masses are huge, which makes them very important for our Earth system as a whole—it also means that their response to anthropogenic climate change, especially that of the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, unfolds on longer timescales. But even if some of the changes might take hundreds or thousands of years to manifest, it's possible we trigger them within just a couple of decades," says Ricarda Winkelmann who leads the research group.


a Regional warming for the whole Earth if Arctic summer sea ice (ASSI) in June, July and August, mountain glaciers (MG), Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) vanish at a global mean temperature of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial. b Same as in (a) with an additional zoom-in of the Arctic region if only the Arctic summer sea ice vanishes, which might happen until the end of the century. The light blue line indicates the region of removed Arctic summer sea ice extent, where its concentration in CLIMBER-2 is 15% or higher. In all panels, the average additional warming on top of 1.5 °C is shown in absolute degree.

Nico Wunderling, Matteo Willeit, Jonathan F. Donges, Ricarda Winkelmann (2020): Global warming due to loss of large ice masses and Arctic summer sea ice. Nature Communications,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18934-3
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #583 on: October 27, 2020, 11:43:42 PM »
    Huh?  They say
 "....the Arctic could become ice-free in summer for the first time within the 21st century. Projections with CMIP-5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) models show that this could be the case as early as 2030 to 2050 for higher emission scenarios such as RCP8.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway). Some GCMs (global circulation models) show an ice-free Arctic for the first time within this century also for the moderate emission scenarios at a warming of 1.7 °C above pre-industrial. Furthermore, observations reveal that the Arctic summer sea ice declines faster than expected in experiments from GCMs."

     Which is accurate when the term "ice-free in summer" refers to < 1M km2 ASI Extent at September summer minimum.

     Then they are vague about what ASI Extent or Area they plugged into their model.  But in Figure 1a the caption says "Regional warming for the whole Earth if Arctic summer sea ice (ASSI) in June, July and August, mountain glaciers (MG), Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) vanish at a global mean temperature of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial.   (bolding added by me).

     ALL ASI vanishing in June July and August (as in zero Extent-Area-Thickness-Volume) during peak solar input is an entirely different scenario than reaching ASI > 1M km2 Extent for a couple of days in September before refreeze resumes.

     So which is it?  <1M km2 ASI Extent or Area at September minimum, or ASI vanishing to give zero km2 ASI for June 1 - August 31?   Based on the Fig. 1A caption, it seems to be the latter, which renders that first paragraph completely out of context with their simulation and egregiously misleading.   

      Before noticing the aforementioned oddity, my hackles got raised by Figure 4.  It is one of the most easily misinterpreted, and therefore poorly designed, data graphics I have ever seen.  The X axis on a chart implies that X values cause the Y axis values as a response.  But that is not really what is happening in Fig. 4.  A reader could all too easily look at that chart and think it says that at 2.5C above preindustrial global mean temperature (GMT) we should expect 4M km2 summer ASI Area.

    At https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2975.msg286961.html#msg286961 our friend gerontocrat made it back safely from his foray into the COVID-19 infested streets to buy booze to let us know that on September 18 ASI Area reached 2,631,888 KM2. 

     2020 is coming in hotter than expected, with a good chance of beating out 2016 as the warmest year in the modern record (disturbing that given solar minimum AND piddling ENSO signal, 2020 should have come in well below 2016 despite 4 more years of incremental warming since 2016, but that's for another rant.)  2020 is nowhere near +2.5C > preindustrial GMT, yet September minimum ASI Area is already well below 4M km2 (and has been for a while). 

     Fig 4. exacerbates the confusion by showing a labeled 1979-2006 average ASI summer minimum sea ice area range of ca. 5.75M - 6.25M km2.

     I think what Fig. 4 is trying to say is that IF ASI vanished in context of GMT at +2.5C, we should expect about 0.10 C additional warming due to the increased Arctic albedo (shown on the right axis).  Whereas, if ASI vanishes for June - July - August  when GMT is at +1.5C, then we should expect an additional 0.18 C of albedo induced warming from that cause.

     So what the heck is the left Y axis referring to?  I tried to help them out by guessing, "Oh, they mean average ASI Area for June-July-August at those GMT values.  Thus about 6.8M km2 average ASI Area for June-July-August at 1.0C.  Conveniently, glennbuck had posted just the chart I needed just below the gero post at https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2975.msg286915.html#msg286915.  Yes, that fits.

     But then why does the label in Fig 1A say "Minimum Arctic sea ice area (observations) average 1979-2006"?  Those values are the June-August average, not the average of the summer minima.  And what does it add to this chart except confusion?

     Correct me if I'm wrong.  Maybe I'm too dumb or tired to understand what they are saying.  But I think it is the other way around.  It is the authors' responsibility to communicate clearly, a task at which this article fails, and worse than that it very easily leads to gross misrepresentation to, and misunderstanding by, the reader.

     The ASI situation is truly bad and getting worse.  But the entire 3 month period of June-July-August is not going to be ice-free in the 2030-2050 time frame. 

      Conversely, summer minimum ASI Area is already well below 4M km2 at our present +1.1C, so there is no way that September minimum ASI Area at +2.5C GMT will be near 4M km2.  There won't be ANY September ASI Area at 2.5C GMT over preindustrial. 

     At least the fallacies balance each other.  But leading the reader to counteracting fallacies is not good enough, in fact it's a mess.



« Last Edit: October 27, 2020, 11:58:29 PM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

kassy

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 8234
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2041
  • Likes Given: 1986
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #584 on: October 28, 2020, 02:20:44 PM »
Quote
Then they are vague about what ASI Extent or Area they plugged into their model.  But in Figure 1a the caption says "Regional warming for the whole Earth if Arctic summer sea ice (ASSI) in June, July and August, mountain glaciers (MG), Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) vanish at a global mean temperature of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial.   (bolding added by me).

     ALL ASI vanishing in June July and August (as in zero Extent-Area-Thickness-Volume) during peak solar input is an entirely different scenario than reaching ASI > 1M km2 Extent for a couple of days in September before refreeze resumes.

     So which is it?  <1M km2 ASI Extent or Area at September minimum, or ASI vanishing to give zero km2 ASI for June 1 - August 31?   Based on the Fig. 1A caption, it seems to be the latter, which renders that first paragraph completely out of context with their simulation and egregiously misleading. 

In our experiments the state of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and mountain glaciers is simply prescribed in the model and affects both, ice cover and topography. In our simulations for the Arctic summer sea ice, the albedo during the summer months (June, July, August) is lowered to average values for open ocean waters instantaneously similar to Blackport and Kushner30, while keeping the computation of ice-covered areas dynamic, such that the experiment does not violate energy and water conservation.

So basically they run CLIMBER-2 as described in the first paragraph of results and then run it with only the ice removed to calculate the relative contribution .

The light blue line indicates the region of removed Arctic summer sea ice extent, where its concentration in CLIMBER-2 is 15% or higher. In all panels, the average additional warming on top of 1.5 °C is shown in absolute degree.

The first paragraph is just a summary of the science for context.
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Tor Bejnar

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 4606
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 879
  • Likes Given: 826
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #585 on: October 28, 2020, 03:27:22 PM »
Glen,
Several years ago my sister published a paper in her field of physical education.  I asked her if a particular cumbersome sentence meant what I thought it did, and she responded, "I should have given you a draft - that's exactly what we meant."  I think the authors got lost in their forest (and the reviewer let them get away with it).  :'(

Added to their mix, some authors mean '5 years in a row with less than 1M sq km sea ice'. 

[Pretty soon "1M sq km" will be "1Msqkm", then "1 mesqkm", then "1 mesqum" (easier to pronounce, and it turns 3 words into one - good for publications).  You know what a mesqum is, surely‽  Put it in the glossary {this is satire: please don't!}] :o ::) :P
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

binntho

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2193
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 878
  • Likes Given: 235
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #586 on: November 05, 2020, 05:40:44 AM »
Saw this paper this morning, it relates to two recent discussions, the first was about how water absorbs energy from the sun (the conclusion was that infrared radiation was absorbed readily by water, while visible light was mostly absorbed by particulates such as algae and their remains), and the second discussion was about Arctic Amplification and how ever more open water leads to a warmer Arctic and ever more open water in a true positive feedbac.

This article points out another potentially powerful positive feedback: The more open water there is to receive insolation, the more algae and the more particulates will be found, leading to more absorbtion of insolation in the upper layers, leading to more Arctic amplification.

Amplified Arctic Surface Warming and Sea Ice Loss Due to Phytoplankton and Colored Dissolved Material


Plain language summary:
Quote
The amount of microalgae and colored dissolved organic material in the ocean determines how much light is absorbed in the surface waters and how much can reach greater depths. The vertical distribution of energy affects the upper ocean temperature and general circulation. Here, we use a numerical ocean model with biogeochemistry and sea ice, in which the individual effects of microalgae and colored dissolved organic matter can be turned on and off separately. When both effects are turned on, the summertime surface temperatures in the Arctic are larger and consequently more sea ice melts, so that the sea ice season is shorter by up to one month. We find that, to a large extent, the colored dissolved material is responsible for these changes. An increase of this material due to climate change will amplify the observed Arctic surface warming. For better projections of climate change, new models should account for the effect of these light‐absorbing water constituents.
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
St. Augustine, Confessions V, 6

kassy

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 8234
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2041
  • Likes Given: 1986
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #587 on: November 05, 2020, 10:38:47 AM »
North Pole time capsule washes up on Irish coast

...

It's believed the capsule travelled nearly 4,000km from the ice floes of the Arctic Circle to the slightly less icy, but still pretty cold, Atlantic waters off Bloody Foreland in Gweedore, County Donegal.

It included letters and photos of explorers onboard the 50 Years of Victory, the world's second biggest ice-breaking ship, from 2018.

...

Speaking via Zoom, she told them the capsule was placed in the Arctic ice and that it must have melted and travelled the massive distance over the two years.

The friends said that Sveta was shocked when she heard the capsule had been found so recently.

"Most people thought it would have taken 30-50 years before people would find it," said Ms Curran.

"It just shows just how quickly the ice is melting," Mr McClory added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54808196
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

Positive retroaction

  • New ice
  • Posts: 51
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 29
  • Likes Given: 160
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #588 on: November 05, 2020, 01:41:31 PM »
Saw this paper this morning, it relates to two recent discussions, the first was about how water absorbs energy from the sun (the conclusion was that infrared radiation was absorbed readily by water, while visible light was mostly absorbed by particulates such as algae and their remains), and the second discussion was about Arctic Amplification and how ever more open water leads to a warmer Arctic and ever more open water in a true positive feedbac.

This article points out another potentially powerful positive feedback: The more open water there is to receive insolation, the more algae and the more particulates will be found, leading to more absorbtion of insolation in the upper layers, leading to more Arctic amplification.

Amplified Arctic Surface Warming and Sea Ice Loss Due to Phytoplankton and Colored Dissolved Material


Plain language summary:
Quote
The amount of microalgae and colored dissolved organic material in the ocean determines how much light is absorbed in the surface waters and how much can reach greater depths. The vertical distribution of energy affects the upper ocean temperature and general circulation. Here, we use a numerical ocean model with biogeochemistry and sea ice, in which the individual effects of microalgae and colored dissolved organic matter can be turned on and off separately. When both effects are turned on, the summertime surface temperatures in the Arctic are larger and consequently more sea ice melts, so that the sea ice season is shorter by up to one month. We find that, to a large extent, the colored dissolved material is responsible for these changes. An increase of this material due to climate change will amplify the observed Arctic surface warming. For better projections of climate change, new models should account for the effect of these light‐absorbing water constituents.
Very interesting, thank you
It also reminds me of Antarctica, because it is there that are the clearest waters on the planet, from memory a visibility of 80 m and very high purity.
If this happened there, this phenomenon would certainly have to be taken into consideration so
Sorry, excuse my bad english

kassy

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 8234
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 2041
  • Likes Given: 1986
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #589 on: November 05, 2020, 04:38:18 PM »
Svalbard’s Mysterious Disappearing Shipwrecks

When Øyvind Ødegård set out last June to scour the seafloor near Svalbard—a vast, ice-covered Norwegian archipelago halfway between continental Norway and the North Pole—he had a dream.

...


Ødegård had reason to dream big: from the 1600s onward, thousands of European whaling vessels ventured to Svalbard to exploit its bowhead whale population, and at least 600 never left. Instead, they were entombed in crushing sea ice or sunk by rival fleets. Finding them could cast new light on an underexplored part of European history.

“Most European Arctic history from this period happened on ships, not land,” says Ødegård. “The only physical remains that can tell us a story about these lives will come from wrecks.”

Ødegård set off aboard the Arctic University of Norway’s (UiT) R/V Helmer Hanssen last summer, with the aim of finding Dutch ships sunk by the French in the 17th century. Using historical reports made to France’s King Louis XIV, Ødegård and his team pinpointed promising spots. But when they deployed underwater drones for a closer look, they not only failed to find Franklin-esque wrecks—they found nothing at all.

The absence suggested an awful possibility: the wrecks—which no one had attempted to find in the past—had been there, but had vanished. The suspected culprit? Shipworms, one of the world’s most voracious destroyers of underwater heritage.

Not a worm at all, shipworms are tunneling, tube-shaped mollusks that thrive on cellulose. A sizable infestation can destroy a sunken ship in just a few years, exposing to the elements the trove of historical treasures contained inside, from human remains to archaeological artifacts.

Shipworms have long been a recognized archaeological threat, but before 2016 no one realized they could endanger the abundant but unexplored wreckage sprawled across the Arctic seafloor, where it was assumed to be far too cold for them to thrive. That year, however, UiT marine biologist Jørgen Berge led an expedition (which also included Ødegård) to the water off Svalbard to investigate a Norwegian whaler called the Figaro, the world’s northernmost-known wreck. The Figaro appeared in good shape. But during the expedition, the team also hauled up a seven-meter tree trunk riddled with live shipworms.

The idea that shipworms may be threatening Arctic wrecks was reinforced in 2019 when Ødegård’s team found boreholes in wood collected from Svalbard beaches. A closer inspection of the Figaro also turned up previously missed evidence of shipworm infestation.

...

Researchers aren’t sure whether the shipworms found in 2016 were a southern species that’s moved north, or an all-new species that thrives in colder waters—genetic sequencing is underway.

...

Last June’s Helmer Hanssen voyage also included Maxime Geoffroy, a researcher in marine ecology at Newfoundland and Labrador’s Memorial University. He and Ødegård intend to go fishing for shipworms in Geoffroy’s own backyard, off the coast of Labrador. The plan is to obtain logs of the same tree species used to build whaling ships, weigh them down with chains, and sink them 50 meters. After a year, they’ll be hauled up and examined.

...

https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/svalbards-mysterious-disappearing-shipwrecks/



https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/svalbards-mysterious-disappearing-shipwrecks/
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #590 on: November 07, 2020, 11:40:51 AM »
A new study shows that increased heat from Arctic rivers is melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and warming the atmosphere.

According to the research, major Arctic rivers contribute significantly more heat to the Arctic Ocean than they did in 1980. River heat is responsible for up to 10% of the total sea ice loss that occurred from 1980 to 2015 over the shelf region of the Arctic Ocean. That melt is equivalent to about 120,000 square miles of 1-meter thick ice.

Rivers have the greatest impact during spring breakup. The warming water dumps into the ice-covered Arctic Ocean and spreads below the ice, decaying it. Once the sea ice melts, the warm water begins heating the atmosphere.

The research found that much more river heat energy enters the atmosphere than melts ice or heats the ocean. Since air is mobile, this means river heat can affect areas of the Arctic far from river deltas.


This diagram shows the relative amount of warming caused by Arctic rivers, with the sources of heat in orange and the heat sinks in turquoise. In spring, rivers flow into the Arctic Ocean, warming the water and melting sea ice, which in turn warms the atmosphere. A feedback occurs as the reflective ice disappears, allowing the dark ocean water to absorb more heat and melt more sea ice. Credit: Graphic adapted from Science Advances paper

The impacts were most pronounced in the Siberian Arctic, where several large rivers flow onto the relatively shallow shelf region extending nearly 1,000 miles offshore. Canada's Mackenzie River is the only river large enough to contribute substantially to sea ice melt near Alaska, but the state's smaller rivers are also a source of heat.

Increasing riverine heat influx triggers Arctic sea ice decline and oceanic and atmospheric warming, Science Advances (2020).
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/45/eabc4699
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #591 on: December 09, 2020, 12:22:08 AM »
2020 Arctic Report Card summary --
The Arctic is getting hotter, greener and less icy much faster than expected, report finds
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/weather/noaa-arctic-report-card-2020-climate-change/index.html

Inside Climate News version
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08122020/annual-report-card-marks-another-disastrous-year-for-the-arctic/

Edit - The Arctic Report Card 2020 is online, with a summary at
https://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2020
« Last Edit: December 09, 2020, 04:51:37 PM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

Killian

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 344
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 77
  • Likes Given: 8
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #592 on: December 09, 2020, 04:58:38 AM »
Francis and Wu are investigating early northern Arctic terrestrial snow melt as helping *slow* late summer sea ice melt.

Video:

Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #593 on: December 15, 2020, 10:28:40 PM »
Oceanographers Find Explanation for the Arctic's Puzzling Ocean Turbulence
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-oceanographers-explanation-arctic-puzzling-ocean.html



Eddies are often seen as the weather of the ocean. Like large-scale circulations in the atmosphere, eddies swirl through the ocean as slow-moving sea cyclones, sweeping up nutrients and heat, and transporting them around the world.

In most oceans, eddies are observed at every depth and are stronger at the surface. But since the 1970s, researchers have observed a peculiar pattern in the Arctic: In the summer, Arctic eddies resemble their counterparts in other oceans, popping up throughout the water column. However, with the return of winter ice, Arctic waters go quiet, and eddies are nowhere to be found in the first 50 meters beneath the ice. Meanwhile, deeper layers continue to stir up eddies, unaffected by the abrupt change in shallower waters.

This seasonal turn in Arctic eddy activity has puzzled scientists for decades. Now an MIT team has an explanation. In a paper published today in the Journal of Physical Oceanography, the researchers show that the main ingredients for driving eddy behavior in the Arctic are ice friction and ocean stratification.

By modeling the physics of the ocean, they found that wintertime ice acts as a frictional brake, slowing surface waters and preventing them from speeding into turbulent eddies. This effect only goes so deep; between 50 and 300 meters deep, the researchers found, the ocean's salty, denser layers act to insulate water from frictional effects, allowing eddies to swirl year-round.

The results highlight a new connection between eddy activity, Arctic ice, and ocean stratification, that can now be factored into climate models to produce more accurate predictions of Arctic evolution with climate change.

"As the Arctic warms up, this dissipation mechanism for eddies, i.e. the presence of ice, will go away, because the ice won't be there in summer and will be more mobile in the winter," says John Marshall, professor of oceanography at MIT. "So what we expect to see moving into the future is an Arctic that is much more vigorously unstable, and that has implications for the large-scale dynamics of the Arctic system."



... Now that they have confirmed that ice friction and stratification have an effect on Arctic eddies, the researchers speculate that this relationship will have a large impact on shaping the Arctic in the next few decades. There have been other studies showing that summertime Arctic ice, already receding faster year by year, will completely disappear by the year 2050. With less ice, waters will be free to swirl up into eddies, at the surface and at depth. Increased eddy activity in the summer could bring in heat from other parts of the world, further warming the Arctic.

At the same time, the wintertime Arctic will be ice covered for the foreseeable future, notes Meneghello. Whether a warming Arctic will result in more ocean turbulence throughout the year or in a stronger variability over the seasons will depend on sea ice's strength.

Regardless, "if we move into a world where there is no ice at all in the summer and weaker ice during winter, the eddy activity will increase," Meneghello says. "That has important implications for things moving around in the water, like tracers and nutrients and heat, and feedback on the ice itself."

Genesis and decay of mesoscale baroclinic eddies in the seasonally ice-covered interior Arctic Ocean, Journal of Physical Oceanography, (2020)
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/aop/JPO-D-20-0054.1/JPO-D-20-0054.1.xml
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Glen Koehler

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 931
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 738
  • Likes Given: 1413
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #594 on: December 22, 2020, 06:54:05 PM »
Killer whales expanding their hunting area by taking advantage of Arcitc sea ice reduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsAfZxyw3r0&feature=emb_logo
    Even if you aren't interested in the biological story, the scale and stark beauty of the scenery makes it worth watching.
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

Tor Bejnar

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 4606
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 879
  • Likes Given: 826
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #595 on: December 22, 2020, 07:59:51 PM »
Both the story and the scenery are worth the effort!
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

vox_mundi

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 10153
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3510
  • Likes Given: 745
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #596 on: December 23, 2020, 01:02:03 AM »
Mosaic On Steroids: Russia’s New Project 00903 Long-Endurance Arctic Research Vessel is Expected to Operate On Research Missions In the Arctic region, for Up to Two Years at a Time.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38332/russias-new-long-endurance-arctic-research-vessel-might-be-the-ugliest-ship-weve-seen



Russia has launched a new Arctic research vessel, named the North Pole. The Project 00903 ship is described as an “ice-resistant self-propelled platform” and is intended to drift through the waters of the frozen north, conducting geological, sonar, geophysical, and oceanographic surveys. It is also far from pretty.



The vessel’s distinctly egg-shaped hull, constructed from special high-durability steel, stems from its requirement to deal with light ice, being propelled along at a speed of around 10 knots. This ship is not an icebreaker, however, and its reinforced hull is designed to be better able to shrug off ice rather than plow through it. Instead, its overall design has been optimized for endurance and autonomy.

Measuring 276 feet long by 74 feet wide, and with a displacement of 10,225 tons, the North Pole is intended to be the first vessel of its kind to be permanently based in the high Arctic.

Previously, Russia, and before that the Soviet Union, made use of drifting ice stations for supporting Arctic research teams. These were built on naturally occurring ice packs or glacier fragments. Beginning in 1937, a total of 40 expeditions had been run, normally in the months of September to October. One of these ice stations provided the U.S. intelligence community with a rare windfall when, in May 1962, under Project Coldfeet, they investigated an abandoned Soviet research station high in the Arctic.

However, the effects of global climate change since the early 2000s means that these kinds of stations are no longer a practical proposition since solid ice is increasingly hard to find.

So, now Russia has turned to the “ice-resistant self-propelled platform,” or Project 00903, which will be able to venture into the Arctic region under its own power, or with the help of an icebreaker, before beginning its “autonomous” mission. In this case, the autonomy refers to being able to operate independently of resupply for extended periods of time, enabling researchers to study the Arctic region for up to two years at a time, without having to dock in port.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

binntho

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2193
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 878
  • Likes Given: 235
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #597 on: December 23, 2020, 05:10:27 AM »
A very good article on "Mr. Winter", the Russian geophysicist Dr. Zimov. The only thing lacking are pictures but The Economist alas has not yet discovered the joys of photography.

https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/19/one-russian-scientist-hopes-to-slow-the-thawing-of-the-arctic
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
St. Augustine, Confessions V, 6

El Cid

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2507
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 923
  • Likes Given: 225
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #598 on: December 23, 2020, 08:27:49 AM »
A very good article on "Mr. Winter", the Russian geophysicist Dr. Zimov. The only thing lacking are pictures but The Economist alas has not yet discovered the joys of photography.

https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/19/one-russian-scientist-hopes-to-slow-the-thawing-of-the-arctic

I read this one a couple of days ago. Quite a colourful guy this one is :)

grixm

  • Grease ice
  • Posts: 699
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 374
  • Likes Given: 131
Re: What's new in the Arctic ?
« Reply #599 on: December 23, 2020, 08:46:14 AM »
Mosaic On Steroids: Russia’s New Project 00903 Long-Endurance Arctic Research Vessel is Expected to Operate On Research Missions In the Arctic region, for Up to Two Years at a Time.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/38332/russias-new-long-endurance-arctic-research-vessel-might-be-the-ugliest-ship-weve-seen


The cynic in me says that their primary objective with this vessel is not science, but searching for fossil fuel deposits, as they mention further down the article.