Short to Medium Term Arctic Sea Ice Conditions Discussion

[Jim Hunt]

I think if you look back through the archives you'll find almost no change until the last bout of precipitation.  The temperatures also just in the past few days went above zero.

If you look back through my archives you'll see lots of changes though. See 2013B/Cam1 temperature profiles above. Here's 2013E/Cam2:

[Neven]

I've posted ASI 2013 Update 4: bye, bye, Beaufort

The weather forecast is brutal, and if this doesn't destroy the ice in the Beaufort Sea, I'm calling it a season and go build my house.

[ktonine]

Jim

From the webcam archives:

April  15th


July 5th


Over those ten weeks very little changed. 

July 8th


Now there are melt ponds visible and (if you see the image not restricted by the column width here) the change is easily noticeable - as much change in the past 4 days as there was in the previous 10 weeks.

[Jim Hunt]

Over those ten weeks very little changed. 

I agree that very little changed on the surface of the ice, or in the water beneath the ice for that matter. The point I was endeavouring to make was that continual temperature increases were nonetheless taking place within the ice.

The sensors on 2013B show there is now no snow cover, hence the more visible stakes. There is also 3 cm of bottom melt so far this month.

[ktonine]

Jim -  I see.  The original statement I made was that little top melt had occurred in the area.  Lodger responded that unless I had data - he assumed I was wrong.  I pointed out that the floes even in the low concentration areas were very white in Modis and that the NP webcams were still recording snow falling. 

I agree that there has been bottom melt and - in the case of the low concentration areas - plenty of lateral melt.  But until the last few days I've seen little evidence of top melt in the  areas closest to the pole. 

All of this is changing, of course, as we speak

[jdallen]

As a reminder, I will point out that the atmosphere has only about 1/200th the energy content of water at the same temperature.  The major effect of above zero air temps is to reduce snow cover and raise albedo. By extension, ten days of ice exposed to 1C seawater should cause close to 80CM of bottom melt.  By comparison, 1C air would only give you a few MM of surface melt over the same period.  As a direct illustration, there were coastal area along the NW passage that got into the high 20s last week, but there is still ice on the adjacent sea.

To get serious surface melt, you need both higher temps (like we might see coming up - possibly 10C or more ) and sunlight. Those temps will still be limited to the ice margins.  Sunlight and sea temp are still the "heavy lifters".

[ghoti]

Buoys 2012G 2012L and 2012H in the Beaufort already have shown substantial surface melt before this high pressure system and clear skys arrived. I haven't seen much in the way of clear sky in the H and L webcam images. Air temperatures haven't seemed high there either. All the same the surface melt has been impressive.

[jdallen]

Buoys 2012G 2012L and 2012H in the Beaufort already have shown substantial surface melt before this high pressure system and clear skys arrived. I haven't seen much in the way of clear sky in the H and L webcam images. Air temperatures haven't seemed high there either. All the same the surface melt has been impressive.

Two possibilities, aside from sunlight getting through the clouds...

The change might actually be snow melt or (2), they got reasonably substantial rainfall.  The energy required wont change. It had to come from somewhere...

[werther]

North Pole webcams are showing melt puddles now...

[Frivolousz21]

It sure is strange that Watt's didn't do a ARCUS: Search SIO July submission.  No Sea ice update or anything.  The 8th was the deadline.

There is no way he "forgot."

[Jim Hunt]

North Pole webcams are showing melt puddles now...

The difference a week can make. End of June:



Today:



Open water in the background still?

[Neven]

It sure is strange that Watt's didn't do a ARCUS: Search SIO July submission.  No Sea ice update or anything.  The 8th was the deadline.

There is no way he "forgot."

Watts said the last poll was rigged by 'you know who you are', and I have to admit it did look that way. So maybe he figured there's no sense in continuing. Larry Hamilton is going about it the right way on the ASIB (asking commenters their prediction and rationale behind it), but it's more work, of course, and Heartland won't be paying 88K for it.

Either way, the less said about the Arctic, the happier Watts is. When was the last time there was any analysis or opinion posted on current events in the Arctic. It has been practically all copy-paste for two years now. Even after the slow first half of the melting season, you can hear crickets chirping on WUWT.

Arctic sea ice is a huge problem for the fake skeptic position.

[werther]

A short comment on the forecast High..
The set-up is unfolding now. A low over the Lena delta is pulling in lots of moisture right over the "Laptev-bite" / splinter zone. Winds are getting stronger, its raining NE of Severnaya Zemlya.
As it looks now, ECMWF shows thursday-saturday to get awful over there.
Watch out... though the hiding cloud sheet may cover until a next week surprise.

[Jim Hunt]

Arctic sea ice is a huge problem for the fake skeptic position.

Furthermore it now seems that Michael Mann enjoyed my little joke at the expense of "The second dumbest man on the internet"!

[BornFromTheVoid]

An impressive melt over the ESS in the last while, with a big jump in the melt visible today.

Here's a gif of the last 4 days melt in the ESS from the r06c04 tile at 500m, ending today, from MODIS.

[ChrisReynolds]

BFTV,

I think that's due to ice movement, not so much melt.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Note how the ice closes on the Laptev low concentration anomaly and moves away from Siberia.

[jdallen]

BFTV,

I think that's due to ice movement, not so much melt.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Note how the ice closes on the Laptev low concentration anomaly and moves away from Siberia.

I agree, there is some movement, but if you follow it closely, you will notice there is a lot of melt-out between the larger floes, and considerable thinning (darkening) in other areas.  Some of the movement is compression within the field of view, rather than movement out of it.  After adjusting for movement, I'd hazard a guess of 3-4% loss of extent a day.

[ChrisReynolds]

I couldn't guess what part melt is playing, but the mass movement in HYCOM is clear.

[jai mitchell]

It looks to me like center melt is drawing the CAB toward the middle.  Could be an effect of changing wind patterns allowing contraction/release toward the center.

[jdallen]

In other areas - serious surface melt appears to be taking place on fast ice near the Fram:

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r02c03.2013189.terra

[ChrisReynolds]

Yes, in other areas. But if the movement carries on as shown by HYCOM it could feasibly act to somewhat close the low concentration ice between Laptev and the Pole. (Waves hands around trying to keep it as general as possible because the outcome could be anywhere between near total closure and hardly any increase in concentration).

[BornFromTheVoid]

BFTV,

I think that's due to ice movement, not so much melt.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Note how the ice closes on the Laptev low concentration anomaly and moves away from Siberia.

The ice drift is certainly playing its part, but it looks like a lot of melt going on to also. The ice in the bay in the middle has almost completely gone, and despite a southward drift, the ice is opening up to the bottom right of the image rather than compacting.

[werther]

This is ECMWF forecast for Friday next week:



It’s a long haul of  time and we know the picture can change a lot. But ECMWF is very consistent on this Beaufort High. Because the steering pattern on 500-300Mb is also consistently based on lower Geopotential  on the Atlantic/American side, Lows tend to get into the Arctic on the Siberian side.
They continue the turbulency and the compaction tendency is clear.

This is a weird season, indeed. The overall summer pattern looks the opposite of that, characterizing the ’07-’12 period. First, a persistent Polar Cyclone, then, a reversed dipole. Greenland repeatedly under Troughs.

[Frivolousz21]

BFTV,

I think that's due to ice movement, not so much melt.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Note how the ice closes on the Laptev low concentration anomaly and moves away from Siberia.

In the particular case of the ESS the ice was blown off the shoreline by winds.  It's likely over 90% directly for the water opening the last couple of days.  But it's also likely if we take the rest of the ESS and add up how much ice has melted the last three days it's probably a good equivalent.

I agree that some of this is ending up as compaction over the Central arctic basin by the pole. Some areas by the pole still have open water. Others have closed up.  But the poleward compaction of ice has come from multiple angles.  The Atlantic side show's major compaction the last 5 days.

Resolutions are way to low to see every 1-3 feet of open between small floes at times that we can't see on satellite. 






I also question the use of hycom at all.  Biggest reason is that it's ice thickness description is no where near reality.

CT SIA was right at or slightly above 2.4 mil km2 on Sept 2nd.  Piomas has like 1.19" average thickness for that day.  But I would presume it's area was higher than 2.4 million. 

I am not sure if anyone has tried to overlay hycom or can use the raw output if available for ice thickness.  But just a rough guesstimate puts around 2.0 million km2 close to 2M thick. 

If that was the case then Volume would be 4000km3 + whatever else was left.

But somewhere around 3/4ths of that two million Km2 of 2 meter ice is 2.5M thick.  We can use 1.5 million km for this guessing game. 

Of that 1.5 million most of it is around 3M or thicker.  Let's go with 1.2 million km2.  And most of that is 3.5M or thicker  Let's go with 1.0 million km2.

 It look's like less than half of that is close to 4.0M or thicker.  It may be less than half.  But we will go with 500,000km2 to make up for the ice that is thicker than 4M.

The two million in area above 2M may be  bit to high eye balling.  The rest quickly drops off.  I will go with 1M for the last 400K.

So I got:

4M: 500,000K
3.5M: 500,000K
3M: 200,000K
2.5M: 300,000K
2M: 500,000K
1M: 400K

This comes out to:

2000
1750
600
750
1000
400
Total: 6500KM3


I might be off but can't be that far off since area was so low.  That is crazy and would come out to an average ice thickness of 2.71 Meters.






I picked this image to coincide with Piomas on May 1st.  And it was before the cyclone messed with hycom so bad.  CT had 12 million in area then.

Off the top of my head it looks like between the CA, Beaufort,Chukchi, ESS, Laptev and Greenland Sea all combined come out to a little over 8 million of that area at the time are close to about 90% min of 2M thick.  But a lot of that light blue is around 2.3m thick.  And seeing that almost all of the ice in those regions is not under 1.5M thick.  But upwards of 3 million in area is over 2.5M thick and most of that quickly jumps.

If we go with 2.5M for all 8 million km2 that is 20,000km3.  If we add another 6000km2 for the remaining 4 mil in area.   We have 26,000km3. 5000km3 above piomas.

If we go with 3.0 mil average for the 8 mil we get 24,000km2 and a total of 30,000km3.

I just don't see how graphs that are so far off from reality really tell us much.  Because of them being such crap.  We can't apply a uniform amount to deduct in terms of thickness. 

[Phil.]

BFTV,

I think that's due to ice movement, not so much melt.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Note how the ice closes on the Laptev low concentration anomaly and moves away from Siberia.

Well the ice in the little inlet certainly melted so you can expect that some of the observed loss of ice is due to melting.

[ChrisReynolds]

Frivolousz,

I too have doubts about the thickness fidelity of HYCOM. But HYCOM has correctly modelled the opening between Laptev and the pole, despite reasonable questions about the believability of it's predictions.

One issue is that of ice movement. Compared to thickness in the melt season, movement is relatively easy to model. But we don't have daily/weekly updates from the DAM, and ASCAT is useless in the summer. So I do think that when HYCOM shows a large movement of the pack opening off Siberia, and a closing in the Laptev/N Pole region. I am happy to take it seriously.

Jus looking at HYCOM clearly shows the mass of ice outlined by the Siberian coast and the Laptev/Pole low concentration region (we need a handy name for it*) moving towards the Atlantic.

*Laptev Bite? Or is this something else entirely and that's why the term seems familiar?

[iceman]

Frivolousz,

 the Laptev/Pole low concentration region (we need a handy name for it*)

The middle of the Arctic Basin has been looking kind of spongy lately.  Perhaps the "Nerf Pole"?

[ChrisReynolds]

  Had to google Nerf, showing my age.

[Vergent]

How about "the pole hole"?

[Neven]

Someone called it the Laptev Gobble. 

[crandles]

the Laptev/Pole low concentration region (we need a handy name for it*) moving towards the Atlantic.

*Laptev Bite? Or is this something else entirely and that's why the term seems familiar?

You didn't like my suggestion of a Laptev Turkey? (It is a gobble not a bite.)

[Bob Wallace]

Santa's swimming pool?

[Vergent]

"the Arctic Basin polynya farm"?

The are having a good year.

[OldLeatherneck]

Since the ice is dead or dying, I think the bird of prey should be one of those that feed on carrion.

Although "vulture" doesn't sound quite right, there might be other birds of prey that feed on carrion, such as condors.  The name does not need to be the English derivative.  Actually, at times, the word in another language can express feelings far better.

So for my many friends, across the globe, here is your chance to re-define the Laptev-Bite!!

[wili]

The Ancient Greek word for vulture sounded something like "goopey" which gets across some idea of the nature of a lot of the ice up there as well these days!

[Artful Dodger]

Central Arctic Bight

[seawolf]

Saying HYCOM is crap shows total ignorance. It is a wonderful tool with extraordinary ideas and hard work to give closure to uncertain terms of the governing equations, based on solid physics, assimilate (imperfect) observations, and propagate solutions using sophisticated methods to solve the resulting integro-differential equations. It is imperfect, in some cases yielding very good qualitative results but with poorer quantitative performance, the opposite for different conditions. As an example people wisely note that the tool predicted the genesis of the arctic bight when many doubted the thing would realize. But a better proof of its usefulness as a prediction tool is people here: the tool is cited here tens of times per day. Not much more out there to show trends in ice evolution accurately.

Less frivolity and more respect please. And that also goes for the satellite-based products. It fills one satisfaction to see these products well used by bloggers and posters but pay respect for the people behind these titanic efforts. Thx, a humble lurker/contributor

[Vergent]

Saying HYCOM is crap shows total ignorance.

Google: "No results found for "HYCOM is crap"."

Straw-man argument.

Vergent

[crandles]

Saying HYCOM is crap shows total ignorance.

Google: "No results found for "HYCOM is crap"."

Straw-man argument.

Vergent

It was in response to frivolousz:

I just don't see how graphs that are so far off from reality really tell us much.  Because of them being such crap.  We can't apply a uniform amount to deduct in terms of thickness. 

I agree that just because there are large differences to total volume, doesn't mean Hycom is cr*p. It almost certainly is pretty good for its intended purpose (risk to shipping). Even if it is biased high from our point of view does not mean it is useless for us let alone cr*p.

[werther]

Oh...you know...it's Friv, or Chris Biscan (I think) ... torches, frying, toast... just enjoy the style and don't get annoyed over some 'street language'.
As for a 'titanic' effort... I'd wish them the courage to direct that to their commissioners, so that the clear danger would become unconveniently present for policymakers...

[ChrisReynolds]

Thanks for the suggestions for a name. 

Now I'm even more confused...

 

[TerryM]

Laptev Blight?


Terry

[Juan C. García]

Jus looking at HYCOM clearly shows the mass of ice outlined by the Siberian coast and the Laptev/Pole low concentration region (we need a handy name for it*) moving towards the Atlantic.

Superman's Fortress of Solitude [sinking]

[PhilDPortsmouth]

6 very brave climbers just made it to the top of the Shard in London - anti Shell drilling. Not usre if this is right place but Neven will correct - I hope
http://iceclimb.savethearctic.org/

[Artful Dodger]

Saying HYCOM is * shows total ignorance.

Hi seawolf, and Welcome!

Since you're new (at least to posting), let me give you some advice from the regulars here. Search the ASI blog for the term "torching" and see who turns up. We've kind of learned to just expect/ignore some cr@p

So, don't get your dolphins in a knot, and welcome aboard! 

P.S. My seabag will be the first one up the hatch when SIE hits < 1 M km²

[werther]

A short remark on the Beaufort High. Today was one of the drive days. Lots of wind, right into the CAA. Clearing on the Siberian Kolyma Coast, but also near Banks.
Cloud trains on MODIS, but also wind driven cumulus over almost visible patternless floes.
ECMWF has this continuing for 8-9 days. NCEP/NCAR shows +4dC temp anomaly over MODIS tile r04c04/r05c04.
End of the ECMWF range: not two, but one rough Low, coming in from Svalbard.

This outlook is enough for delivering -800K.

[jdallen]

To segue from werther, there appears to be some dramatic activity in the fast ice on the east coast of Greenland.  Maybe the Fram is about to get about a hundred KM wider?

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r03c03.2013192.terra.250m.jpg

Check further south as well. Interesting movement.

[6roucho]

Saying HYCOM is crap shows total ignorance. It is a wonderful tool with extraordinary ideas and hard work to give closure to uncertain terms of the governing equations, based on solid physics, assimilate (imperfect) observations, and propagate solutions using sophisticated methods to solve the resulting integro-differential equations. It is imperfect, in some cases yielding very good qualitative results but with poorer quantitative performance, the opposite for different conditions. As an example people wisely note that the tool predicted the genesis of the arctic bight when many doubted the thing would realize. But a better proof of its usefulness as a prediction tool is people here: the tool is cited here tens of times per day. Not much more out there to show trends in ice evolution accurately.

Less frivolity and more respect please. And that also goes for the satellite-based products. It fills one satisfaction to see these products well used by bloggers and posters but pay respect for the people behind these titanic efforts. Thx, a humble lurker/contributor

Although hopefully not so Titanic as to be sunk by ice. 

[Frivolousz21]

Frivolousz,

I too have doubts about the thickness fidelity of HYCOM. But HYCOM has correctly modelled the opening between Laptev and the pole, despite reasonable questions about the believability of it's predictions.

One issue is that of ice movement. Compared to thickness in the melt season, movement is relatively easy to model. But we don't have daily/weekly updates from the DAM, and ASCAT is useless in the summer. So I do think that when HYCOM shows a large movement of the pack opening off Siberia, and a closing in the Laptev/N Pole region. I am happy to take it seriously.

Jus looking at HYCOM clearly shows the mass of ice outlined by the Siberian coast and the Laptev/Pole low concentration region (we need a handy name for it*) moving towards the Atlantic.

*Laptev Bite? Or is this something else entirely and that's why the term seems familiar?

This paper is from 2010.  It cover's hycoms accuracy.  Somethings may have been upgraded since then.  So that data might be off a bit.  But it goes into great detail how bad the ice thickness is. 

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pubs/2010/posey1-2010.pdf

I was just referring to the ice thickness.


(This is not directed at you Chris.)


I am pretty sure this blog talked about this and how using hycom was wrong and it's ice thickness data was horrible.
(wattsupwiththat) 2010/05/29/arctic-ice-volume-has-increased-25-since-may-2008/


I am also one hundred percent sure I have seen hycom used to validate a whole bunch of bottom melt by different individuals on the blog.  So Watts is a scumbag using modeled ice thickness that sucks.


But now hycom shows huge bottom ice melt in the central arctic and it's a usable modeled thickness estimator now?


It's impossible to deny it's had a big effect on a lot of folks that  the Central arctic basin is going to have an unprecedented melt out just by reading the blog.

So I went off on how terrible hycom is with ice thickness.  Showed some comparisons.  Which spoke for themselves.

Now I am Ignorant.

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/156-arctic-sea-ice-extent/page-10

Google: "No results found for "HYCOM is crap"."

Straw-man argument.

Vergent

If you are trying to say what I said was straw man.  Well on the other board you broke out some nifty volume numbers on Cryosat and Hycom to show the "other" side how wrong they were.


I hope you are not going back on that now that it shows big melting under some of the ice.

[Artful Dodger]

Friv,

Please do not link to WTFUWT in here. This is a science forum. There is no science there. Thank-you.