Hi DBostrom,
I’m flattered that my initial experimenting on how to preserve relevant MODIS tiles is gaining attention. I saw it being copied on the Wunderground CC Blog, but without the description of it’s production (very crude, but the result was to my own surprise striking).
This was a perfect illustration of the importance of what I’ve been calling the ‘mesh-structured’ pack since spring 2011.
Recalling, it still covered a wide part of the CAB last year June (about 3 Mkm2), but it was reduced to 1,8 Mkm2 at September minimum.
Apparently, it never ‘grew back’. When MODIS became available during March, large swaths of the pack were covered by snow, hiding the structure. But on ASCAT the 1,8 Mkm2 stood out during winter.
Wayne Davidson has suggested that the dissolving of the FYI pack (I explicitly avoid the term ‘melt’…) seems to work to its initial formation in October last year as ‘pancake-structure’. I like that. Under the snow cover, all through April the weaknesses in between must have gotten worse. Then, PAC2013, as an extension of the cyclone all the way through the troposphere, dispersed all of it, exploiting the 'space' there's been for months.
There’s an amazing range of different ‘niches’ for ice behaviour, spread out over the nine million km2 of Arctic Ocean that does really matter ( skip Hudson, Baffin, East Greenland, Barentsz, Bering and Okhotsk).
The Beaufort last months is another story than the Sib side of the CAB.
Winters’ impact has been different. The main atmospheric flow is different. Mind, the East Sib Sea sector had +2-3 dC anomaly that wasn’t countered by the Feb-May cold in the periphery. And take into account that the anomalous cyclone drew a SW flow for weeks, generally from the Barentsz Sea into the East Sib Sea sector of the CAB ( rather cold, but NTL a flow).
While February weather brought the Beaufort fracturing, later phenomena promoted the mobility/weakness of the pack in the Sib sector. Maybe compressing the Beaufort part. I’m curious whether the initial form of Feb fracturing will show up in the melt process…
So what? Well, the ‘mesh structured’ pack still exists. It is about 1,6 Mkm2 now, mostly visible in MODIS tiles r05c03 and r04c03 near the CAA/Greenland. For survival and a ‘long tail’, it is of extreme importance whether this area will be spared this summer.
What are the chances? No earlier years’ plot is relevant, this is a unique drama.
As long as the temps don’t step up, winds don’t churn the mess and no Nemesis cyclone enters through July/August, there’s a chance the ‘pancake’ FYI on the Sib side still may provide some cover that prevents the ‘mesh-pack’ to break-up (that will be the end some coming year).
A same sort of hope goes for the Beaufort glass-plate to hold out ALAP.
That’s still the 4 Mkm2 mean September extent story.
There’s a bigger chance that the 3,28 Mkm2 scenario will unfold (my prediction, still).
You see, there’s about 2 Mkm2 structureless floe-soup now in the CAB (the CAB being 4,4 Mkm2).
Although CT, UB and HYCOM present a lot of red concentration and 2m thick ice, that is only relevant for the floes. And they’re swimming…
Even without melt-conducive weather, any period of strong winds can destroy them and let 2 Mkm2 bare ocean emerge in a week.
