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ktonine

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2050 on: July 08, 2014, 01:26:20 PM »
I'm not sure I understand the rationale for comparisons to 2013.

As pointed out numerous times, 2013 was in position to catch 2012 near the end of July.  The it flatlined on CT for 11 days.

Is the rationale that DMI temps indicate 2014 will also flatline for 11 days come the last week of July and the first week of August?

If not, then what is it?


werther

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2051 on: July 08, 2014, 02:03:17 PM »
Ktonine, hi,

I took just these two maps/graphs for illustration. I compared mean temps to all years '05-'13.
Based on these maps/graphs I can only suppose the low spring temps are an important reason why '14 has such high SIA and volume.
I can say nothing from this for what DMI might further indicate. Neither can I extrapolate from these graphs/maps to suppose a flatlining to come.

What is the rationale for comparisons to 2013? Not more than the rationale to compare to other years and try to learn. That isn't easy, because what happened in the past matters not much for what's to come. It's just that the baseline for the rest of this season isn't great for melt, based on this Arctic spring.
But the underlying background (FI the relatively warm winters, the weakened structure of the ice and increasing AGW forcing) makes a return to pre-'07 conditions highly unrealistic.

BTW the sputtering ENSO and +PDO also enhance the difficulties for any forecast where this is heading.

Nightvid Cole

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2052 on: July 08, 2014, 02:21:36 PM »
I'm beginning to think the September minimum will be really, really crazy. Not in area or extent, but in being far more shifted to the Atlantic side than ever, with almost no retreat of the ice edge on that side but at the same time having open water to very high latitudes on the Pacific side. I await a gridded PIOMAS thickness data plot ...

Wipneus and Chris Reynolds will probably soon have stuff up, but in the meantime I've received this from someone at the PSC:



This confirms that 2014 will most probably not be like 2013, but I would need to see more comparisons to estimate chances of making it to the top 3.

Thanks for the map, Neven. Indeed, the regions that are significantly thicker than in 2013 are either 1) Positioned on the Atlantic side and will be lost to melt or export without contributing to the strength of ice in the CAB,  or 2) tucked away against the CAA/Greenland in a small region that stays in place for several years and unlikely to contribute to the central Arctic. None of it is in the central Arctic or Chuckchi/ESS where it could actually hold up the ice and keep the MYI extent up.

Weather permitting, we could easily enter 2015 with only the CAA/Greenland areas having MYI and the rest of the Arctic ice waiting on death row...

helorime

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2053 on: July 08, 2014, 04:22:20 PM »
The Arctic is largely cloud free today.  A good opportunity for ice-gazing.  There is a lot of pretty solid looking ice around compared to last year IMHO.  The ESS has some pretty sturdy-looking fast ice left, and the Canadian side of the CAB appears to be the old solid mesh pack.  I would guess that it would take some pretty disruptive weather to have a near record melt-season at this point.

The O-buoys are sitting in the sun but it is not warm.  O-Buoy 9 shows nice sparkly cold snow on top of the ice still, and though O-buoy 10 is surrounded by an increasing amount of melt ponding I find it striking that there is clearly white snow sitting on the on-melted areas.  I wonder if the unusually snowy refreeze season indeed has insulated from melt as has been hypothesized elsewhere.

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2014189.terra.1km
http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy9/camera
http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy10/camera

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deep octopus

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2054 on: July 08, 2014, 04:31:22 PM »
MODIS is showing the pack ice beginning to separate from the fast ice around ESS under the heavy rotation of the Beaufort high. This drift that's pulling the pack ice from ESS should continue for a few more days. I'm also anticipating the pack ice to break away from Alaska at last within the next few days. But for the cloud coverage yesterday, it looks as though the Laptev bite is also continuing to gape ever wider.


Bruce

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2055 on: July 08, 2014, 04:51:59 PM »
Looks like we have a polynya opening up in the north pole again.
I'm not sure what that is. I can't find anything obvious on the MODIS images that it corresponds to. May be just a glitch. We'll see if it's still there tomorrow.

jdallen

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2056 on: July 08, 2014, 06:01:50 PM »
Looks like we have a polynya opening up in the north pole again.
I wouldn't quite call it that yet, but satellite imagery posted elsewhere by Chris Reynolds does suggest the central pack is starting to open up.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2057 on: July 08, 2014, 06:29:59 PM »
The ice at 0buoy10 is barely over 1.5M thick.  That is with a drift being measured.  So the ice might be under 1.5M in that area at 77N. 

Barring a miracle of God it's all melting out.

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Bruce

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2058 on: July 08, 2014, 10:06:10 PM »
MODIS is showing the pack ice beginning to separate from the fast ice around ESS under the heavy rotation of the Beaufort high. This drift that's pulling the pack ice from ESS should continue for a few more days. I'm also anticipating the pack ice to break away from Alaska at last within the next few days. But for the cloud coverage yesterday, it looks as though the Laptev bite is also continuing to gape ever wider.
Today and tomorrow are the beginning of what may be a very interesting few days. IJIS was back over 100K yesterday (109K, actually) and there's a big change in the drift patterns. I suspect that you're right about the ESS and Laptev. In addition the area north of greenland and the CAA where the Big Crack showed up will be under a lot of pressure -- not melting, but a lot of shear stress. The open water in the Kara and Chukchi will likely expand, as well. And I suspect there will be a lot of export through the Fram and the two straits to the east, all of which will eventually melt.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2059 on: July 08, 2014, 10:06:41 PM »
 :o :o :o :o :o :o :o


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it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2060 on: July 08, 2014, 10:14:18 PM »
I agree about the drift pattern. 

For a few days winds line up well to compress the Chuchki, ESS, Laptev and the Atlantic side by NE GIS where major torching is taking place

Just from what I've seen so far today I'd be surprised if jaxa doesn't have an even larger drop than yesterday.

It's also pretty clear and sunny over most of the basin with near 500W/m2 going on.  You would think Area would drop.

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it go e-e-e-e-ow e-e-e-e-e-e-blaow

Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2061 on: July 08, 2014, 10:59:25 PM »
The DMI SST anomaly map is looking more promising:



Looking warmer than 2013, I'd say:



But absolutely uncomparable to 2012:



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Neven

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2062 on: July 08, 2014, 11:55:35 PM »
And here's the average SLP pattern map for July 1st-6th to be compared to other years here:

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Bruce Steele

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2063 on: July 09, 2014, 12:24:00 AM »
Neven, All three of the DMI SST anomaly maps show a feature called a Taylor column in the Chukchi
Sea over a shallow shoal called the Herald Shoal(  ~ 20 meters deep ). Here is a contour map showing the same melting pattern over the same feature in 1994.

http://polar.ocean.washington.edu/taylor/chukchi_shoals.html

Just a visual but it looks like there is a lot of Pacific Warm Water entering the Chukchi in that area this year.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2064 on: July 09, 2014, 02:39:48 PM »
Looking warmer than 2013, I'd say:
Inferring from the Climate Reanalyzer forecast, much of that anomalous warm water drifting up along the North Atlantic Current will move into the southern Barents, well away from the ice edge - as happened for most of the 2013 melt season.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2065 on: July 09, 2014, 03:46:56 PM »
Looking warmer than 2013, I'd say:
Inferring from the Climate Reanalyzer forecast, much of that anomalous warm water drifting up along the North Atlantic Current will move into the southern Barents, well away from the ice edge - as happened for most of the 2013 melt season.


2013 had record ice losses on the Atlantic side.
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helorime

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2066 on: July 09, 2014, 04:39:35 PM »
It's a little warmer in Alert today and it is not predicted to get below freezing again for the weeks: http://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:00000.1.71082
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2067 on: July 09, 2014, 05:00:25 PM »


is it just me or is the melt water draining from this melt pond? in o-bouy 10?

That or it's refreezing any thoughts?

Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2068 on: July 09, 2014, 05:08:31 PM »
It's probably surface refreeze at night with clear skies and radiational cooling.
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2069 on: July 09, 2014, 05:17:56 PM »
The Canadian Basin looks like ****.



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deep octopus

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2070 on: July 09, 2014, 05:24:30 PM »
160,000 km^2 drop on NSIDC extent for July 8th. Virtually tied, it's on pace to pass 2010. Rather close to 2007 still.

Bruce

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2071 on: July 09, 2014, 05:29:31 PM »
The Canadian Basin looks like ****.
Let's face it, almost all of the ice looks like that now. There are only a few areas of the CAB that have large expanses of intact ice. Everything else is that kind of slush or, worse, isolated floes wandering around waiting to melt (like the Laptev-Kara region).

BornFromTheVoid

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2072 on: July 09, 2014, 05:55:43 PM »
160,000 km^2 drop on NSIDC extent for July 8th. Virtually tied, it's on pace to pass 2010. Rather close to 2007 still.

The average daily loss between now and the 15th for 2010 is around -70k/day, 2007 was -103k/day.
We've averaged -85k/day over the last 7 days.
I recently joined the twitter thing, where I post more analysis, pics and animations: @Icy_Samuel

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2073 on: July 09, 2014, 06:15:32 PM »
is it just me or is the melt water draining from this melt pond? in o-bouy 10?

I agree, it's draining.
You can see it best by comparing the two images 24 hours apart: "2014-07-08 14:20" and "2014-07-09 14:21".

The surface of the pond froze at some point at the higher level. You can see the remainder of the frozen surface on the left in the later image. In the latest image below, that remainder has melted away.

Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2074 on: July 09, 2014, 06:19:09 PM »
Draining wouldn't be surprising either given how thin the ice is there.
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2075 on: July 09, 2014, 06:51:08 PM »
Interesting to review the recent Healy Icebreaker temperature log (http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=NEPP):

Shortly before it sailed into ice covered water, the air temperature was 5 to 12 C.  Now among the ice cubes (and a few degrees north), the air temperature is just below 0.

- just like the professor predicted! (don't ask me which professor)
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Andreas T

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2076 on: July 09, 2014, 06:56:25 PM »
Draining wouldn't be surprising either given how thin the ice is there.
given that the ice is still 1.5 m thick and below -1deg C for half of that, it would need a crack to drain. I think it is lowering surface by deepening into less dense / porous ice. The low ice (and sea water) temps make meltponds self sealing until the ice gets very thin I have read on the Healy blog somewhere. here:http://arcticspring.org/dispatches/closing-circle

Quote
Sea ice tends to be more or less porous due to enlarged grain size as temperatures warm or to pockets of salt trapped within an otherwise solid structure.  So why doesn’t the fresh water that pools on the surface of the ice, above sea level, simply drain through the pores into the saltwater below?  The answer turns out to be elegantly simple, as Ken and Chris concluded through repeated experimentation on the ice using fresh- and saltwater, and food dye to gauge the extent of ice permeability.  Their conclusion: Because freshwater has a higher freezing point than saltwater, the freshwater (from snowmelt) quickly freezes at the bottom and sides of the pond where it contacts the ice and thereby forms a seal that prevents the freshwater from flowing out through the otherwise permeable sea ice below
« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 07:03:11 PM by Andreas T »

wili

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2077 on: July 09, 2014, 07:22:20 PM »
Interesting ice dynamics. But if there has been soot falling on these ponds from wildfires in Canada and Siberia, that may change those dynamics a bit, I would think.
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Frivolousz21

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2078 on: July 09, 2014, 07:55:18 PM »
Thanks for the knowledge.

In the grand scheme of things 1.5M ice is pretty thin.  But that makes a lot of sense.

Sadly the buoy we are watching there and camera might fail before the melt ponds drain.



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Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2079 on: July 09, 2014, 08:29:25 PM »
A few clouds around messing up the view today, but nonetheless a long strip of ice has just become detached from northern Greenland:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/summer-2014-images/#CAB

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2080 on: July 09, 2014, 08:46:58 PM »
Draining wouldn't be surprising either given how thin the ice is there.
given that the ice is still 1.5 m thick and below -1deg C for half of that, it would need a crack to drain. I think it is lowering surface by deepening into less dense / porous ice. The low ice (and sea water) temps make meltponds self sealing until the ice gets very thin I have read on the Healy blog somewhere. here:http://arcticspring.org/dispatches/closing-circle

Quote
Sea ice tends to be more or less porous due to enlarged grain size as temperatures warm or to pockets of salt trapped within an otherwise solid structure.  So why doesn’t the fresh water that pools on the surface of the ice, above sea level, simply drain through the pores into the saltwater below?  The answer turns out to be elegantly simple, as Ken and Chris concluded through repeated experimentation on the ice using fresh- and saltwater, and food dye to gauge the extent of ice permeability.  Their conclusion: Because freshwater has a higher freezing point than saltwater, the freshwater (from snowmelt) quickly freezes at the bottom and sides of the pond where it contacts the ice and thereby forms a seal that prevents the freshwater from flowing out through the otherwise permeable sea ice below
Neat! Also, sounds like a good way to transfer heat from the surface into the ice interior.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2081 on: July 09, 2014, 08:49:30 PM »
I posted the following comment in another thread; Chris Reynolds suggested to re-post it here.

---

From the twitter account of Michel Tsamados, co-author of the Schroeder et al. paper  "September Arctic sea-ice minimum predicted by spring melt-pond fraction".

https://twitter.com/micheltsamados

Quote
Latest prediction (based on pond fraction 1 May - 25 June 2014): 5.5 +/- 0.44 Mill. km2

Pond fraction very low till mid June, but rapid increase since mid-June and reached 2001-2013 mean around 25 June. These are model results.



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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2082 on: July 09, 2014, 09:11:10 PM »
Bruce Steele


It's fortunate that we've entrusted Hanna Shoal to a company with such a fine record in the Arctic as Shell. Other multinationals might not be as sensitive to the plight of the walrus population that relies on the Taylor column's ice cover as a calving ground.
It's unfortunate that much of this population had to take up residence on Alaska's shores where they soon ate everything needed to sustain themselves & their young. One shudders to imagine how badly the situation could have turned out had Shell not withdrawn because of their strongly espoused commitment to the ecology of the Arctic.
A multinational that cares more for the environment than profit is a rare thing indeed, but Shell has proven itself willing to retreat whenever it's used equipment, bought cheap and poorly maintained, proved unable to cope with the vicissitudes of Arctic Oil Extraction.
By maintaining good relations with the only nation that possesses a fleet of icebreakers capable of heavy ice operations we can be assured that should the unthinkable happen Russia would spare no expense to race to our rescue.


Terry

Andreas T

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2083 on: July 09, 2014, 09:19:33 PM »

wili

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2084 on: July 09, 2014, 09:47:55 PM »
I just want to point out that we all seem be, to some extent, getting seduced by the glamor of numbers.

We have wonderful charts and graphs that compare today's SIA and extent with past years, complete with anomalies, etc.

But we are measuring now, in most cases, something stunningly different than what we were measuring in the past.

I live in Minnesota, where lakes freeze over every year. If I were comparing two lakes the way we are comparing years, I would judge a lake with five inches of solid lake ice to be the same as a lake covered with a thin veneer of slushy (if we are talking about area and extent) or with five inches of slushy (if we are talking about volume). Anyone looking at the two lakes would laugh their a$$es off that I claimed to say anything of any significance about the relative conditions of the two lakes by making my careful measurements of their respective ice area, ice extent, and ice volume.

Yet this is what we do.

Maybe everyone is already perfectly aware of this. If so, please ignore.

But does anyone else get the sense that we are fooling ourselves a bit with our obsessions over numbers that are in fact comparing apples with...well, orange juice/banana smoothies?

Numbers can lie as easily as they can elucidate; indeed, much more easily.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2085 on: July 09, 2014, 10:02:29 PM »
Quote
But we are measuring now, in most cases, something stunningly different than what we were measuring in the past.

EXCELLENT point.  Humans have a MUCH easier time of looking backward.....then we do of looking forward.  Things have changed significantly.....and we are STILL just at the beginning of this long term change.

Things that will continue to happen in the coming few years will be quite eye popping.  I am sure of that.....  Everyone needs to continue to EXPECT the unexpected change.  And that change will likely come more quickly than many believe.
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2086 on: July 09, 2014, 10:13:34 PM »
We were writing about "slush puppie" ice in 2011 on the ASIF.  Although others have declared this year that the pack is in worse shape than in previous years, I'm not certain this is true, at least in some areas. (The Atlantic sector last year had some really spaced out areas.)

Personally, I'm fascinated by the 'transverse fault' just north of the CAA that is separating much of the thickest MYI from the fast ice.  The concentration maps (both HYCOM and ASI) of recent days show this line.  MODIS (between the clouds) appears to show this 'fault zone' as a zone of pretty packed but probably loose melange.  The more mobile the MYI ice is, the more likely it will get exported to a melting region (next year).  I know the Beaufort Gyre has "always" moved ice around, but it seems to be freer recently.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2087 on: July 09, 2014, 10:42:20 PM »
Good points, Tor. I'm not sure there's a clear pre-/post-slush-puppie line before with things were relatively solid and after which things got mushy. As I understand it, there have always been 'leads' and other types of holes and cracks in the ice. But for most of the ice, I think it's safe to say that today's sea ice sheet is a fundamentally different creature than that of ten or twenty years ago.

I'm not saying we should stop measuring it, by any means. But we should be aware that when we include data from many years back, the most of the ice measured then had some fundamental differences in quality from most of the ice that we are measuring now. One of those differences, I am guessing, is the ability of the loose ice to spread out over vast area relatively easily. Probably it can also pile up on itself a bit more easily, too.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2088 on: July 09, 2014, 10:47:53 PM »
A few clouds around messing up the view today, but nonetheless a long strip of ice has just become detached from northern Greenland:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/summer-2014-images/#CAB
Stupendous!  That's about 1000KM2 of ice broken loose.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2089 on: July 09, 2014, 10:50:34 PM »
A few clouds around messing up the view today, but nonetheless a long strip of ice has just become detached from northern Greenland:

I saw that too and found it striking.  Then I checked images from around this time last year and saw that the ice edge was similar, making this technically mostly first year ice that has broken off.  Still I would think it is highly compacted and rather thick ice.  It's a lot of volume to be set free.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2090 on: July 09, 2014, 10:51:20 PM »
I posted the following comment in another thread; Chris Reynolds suggested to re-post it here.

---

From the twitter account of Michel Tsamados, co-author of the Schroeder et al. paper  "September Arctic sea-ice minimum predicted by spring melt-pond fraction".

https://twitter.com/micheltsamados

Quote
Latest prediction (based on pond fraction 1 May - 25 June 2014): 5.5 +/- 0.44 Mill. km2

Pond fraction very low till mid June, but rapid increase since mid-June and reached 2001-2013 mean around 25 June. These are model results.



I don't know how their model comes up with this, as CAPIE has been the highest in the 2005-2014 period for a while now:

« Last Edit: July 09, 2014, 11:34:18 PM by Neven »
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2091 on: July 09, 2014, 11:18:10 PM »
Long time lurker, enjoy all the analysis and lively discussions.  Anyway, was wondering if anyone caught Dr. Jeff Master's latest on WUnderground regarding Typhoon Neoguri's upcoming ripple effect on the Jet Stream:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2722

I bring it to attention because it calls for some pretty harsh heat anomalies around the Arctic next week:



Seems like there is a lot of ice remaining around the shores with the deepest reds.  Any thoughts on how this might effect the ice pack, if at all?  Thanks.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2092 on: July 09, 2014, 11:21:51 PM »
@Neven
For some reason, I only see a "wrong way!" sign. Any idea what happened?
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2093 on: July 09, 2014, 11:25:59 PM »
Bob,

I also noticed from the CCI forecasts that the Alaska/Yukon region will have far above average temperatures next week. As I've supposed before, this warmth will probably travel the northbound rivers like Mackenzie and Sag, which discharge into the Beaufort Sea. Various tributaries along Siberia that also empty into the Arctic basin will likely carry warmer water as well. This could speed bottom melt of the ice.

It's a very fascinating idea, that of Neoguri influencing the jetstream so.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2094 on: July 09, 2014, 11:35:07 PM »
@Neven
For some reason, I only see a "wrong way!" sign. Any idea what happened?

Yes, I moved the image to another Picasa folder. Fixed the link.
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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2095 on: July 10, 2014, 12:01:13 AM »
Thanks, deep octupus!  Should be very interesting to watch unfold.  I'm in the Midwest, so I'm also curious to see how the expected temperature drop plays out.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2096 on: July 10, 2014, 01:30:30 AM »
Some of these medium range fantasies are showing unreal heat pulses blasting the arctic from both sides at times.

But especially the Russian side.

Are we talking about low 90s on the ESS shoreline with down-slope?

Look at that heat pulse.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2097 on: July 10, 2014, 02:29:10 AM »
Some of these medium range fantasies are showing unreal heat pulses blasting the arctic from both sides at times.

Indeed, those kind of massive heat pulses coming in from Central Siberia have been popping up in the forecast on a steady basis for the past days/week. They have come in various different shapes, some of whom looks very dangerous, but are always way out there in fantasyland (192h and beyond) and have not managed to establish in the forecasts yet.

Though, I cannot recall seeing forecasts being so aggressive when it comes to throwing these very warm domes into the arctic basin, not this year nor previously, and this latest one has the most absurd strength of them all (maybe that is just my imagination). It might indicate that models are on to something, so it can be worth to keep just a tiny little eye on as I presume that a couple of days with Siberian heat may do a couple of weeks worth of melt on the ice.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2098 on: July 10, 2014, 02:35:41 AM »
I might be even more concerned about the heat whipping up Siberian wildfires, with indirect effects of soot affecting Greenland and multi-year ice elsewhere, for years to come.

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Re: The 2014 Melting Season
« Reply #2099 on: July 10, 2014, 05:50:48 AM »
Another 100K day on IARC-JAXA. That's three in a row. In the last 20 days, it's averaged almost 102K per day. Extent is now below every year except 2011 and 2012. And now we're in the warm part of the season. Doesn't bode well for the ice, sorry to say.