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The rest / Seismic Testing in Baffin Bay

« on: February 06, 2015, 05:49:19 PM »

A decision by Canada's National Energy Board to allow potentially highly disruptive seismic testing for oil in the Canadian Arctic is being challenged by the local community. CBC have a short piece about it:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/federal-court-expedites-clyde-river-seismic-testing-challenge-1.2919321

and the Arctic Journal:
http://arcticjournal.com/oil-minerals/1270/not-now-soon

The local community have asked Greenpeace to support them and they have set up a petition which can be signed here:
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/speakout/clyde-river?js=false&source=em&subsource=20150206staem03&utm_source=gpeace&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=20150206staem03

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Glossary ... for newbies and others

« on: June 11, 2013, 01:04:07 AM »

CAB - Central Arctic Basin

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Short to Medium Term Arctic Sea Ice Conditions Discussion

« on: June 03, 2013, 02:42:19 AM »

As there's some confusion about the Coriolis force (if anyone says it's simple they probably don't really understand it), I thought I'd link to an excellent primer in the form of a relatively short three part series in the journal 'Weather' from 2000 by Anders Persson. I've linked to it before on 'the blog' and it seemed to be appreciated. The links below provide links to the three free to download pdfs of the series, collectively titled 'Back to Basics.'
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Short to Medium Term Arctic Sea Ice Conditions Discussion

« on: April 24, 2013, 05:38:35 PM »

I agree with crandles' analysis, but not necessarily the solutions. I think having both isotherms and isobars is too confusing, making sense of the fainter dotted line depends upon what else is going on in that region of the map.

I would eliminate the the isotherms and use only the colour graded contour plot for temperature, including a clear legend. If you want to highlight the 0C isotherm perhaps makes this the transition between the greens and blues?

But I agree that currently existing Arctic weather maps are generally appalling, and applaud your efforts.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: Arctic sea ice free (extent)

« on: April 12, 2013, 05:11:39 PM »

I haven't seen it mentioned; if it has been and I missed it apologies.

A February 2013 paper in Geophysical Research Letters by Overland and Wang "When will the Summer Arctic be Nearly Sea Ice Free?", updating their earlier work (that I know has been mentioned), compared what they categorise as the three approaches to answering the question. I've uploaded the full paper here for anyone interested.

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Arctic sea ice / Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask

« on: March 29, 2013, 05:45:54 PM »

Hi Johnm33,
Your intuition serves you well! What you are describing there is deep water formation, which takes water on a thermohaline odyssey that ultimately leads to the north pacific some hundreds of years later.
It's not just surface waters that leave the Arctic through the Fram Strait, but also intermediate and deep water that flows on southwards through the Denmark straight. Other significant deep waters that form and flow south in the region are Labrador sea water and Iceland-Scotland overflow water. Their path is largely driven by bathymetry. See here for an indication. (And partly why the North-Atlantic drift isn't about to start flowing west of Greenland)

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