Messages

1

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: August 06, 2014, 04:31:52 AM »

This is amazing.

That Kamchatka low wants to break down the gates. High over Beaufort is a bully, though. So it would take a freight train. Hell of an east west dipole over Russia.

Smoke entraining in Arctic crossing cloud patterns from both Russia and Canada, rain and mixed precip over the 80 N line.

This looks like another brutal week for the ice.

2

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: August 06, 2014, 04:11:40 AM »

And the ESS goes into negative anomaly...

OT: AGW has some of the strongest proofs for any current scientific theory. We might have better proofs for gravity.

3

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: August 01, 2014, 06:00:23 AM »

I think with what the models show the biggest factors to watch is the ocean to ice heat transport.  A lot of heat will be moved into the water around the Chuchki, ESS, and Laptev thru the period.

We have already seen the impact in the Laptev region with the ice over the 80-85N area there quickly falling apart.

The Chukchi and ESS are very shallow.  Between the surface heating, winds, whatever solar comes, and warm waters and possible waves at times we may see a methodical thrashing of the ice in these areas.

A strong storm emerging from the Bering or Russia at this time of year and all previous bets are off. This is the time of year when the old rules have changed, Friv. You should know this.

We have a three the four week storm window. All weather eyes should be out in force.

4

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: August 01, 2014, 02:06:57 AM »

18z GFS takes the return to dipole even further.  Here we go again.

You'll want to keep an eye on that low forming off Irkutsk...

5

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 31, 2014, 08:52:06 PM »

Those lows (one in the Gulf of Alaska and one in the Bering Sea) are two apparent culprits in the daisy chain. If those don't weaken soon, how long can this pattern be expected to go on? Those winds are clocking nearly 30 km/hr as they pour into the Chukchi. This is at least enough to generate small waves, and I'm sure with the fetch size, the waves lapping on the ice edge are to some degree larger.

In my opinion, the warm air invasion and Russian side/ Canadian side temp differential is spinning up those lows. In my view, the continued warm air flood over the ESS could sustain the pattern. I think this is why we see a 'flip' in the models. What's left of the polar vortex in the region of 80 N is undergoing disruption/collapse which facilitates the Pacific to Atlantic flow. The pattern is unstable, however, and the low/cold air mass, will want to bounce around a lot. Think of what happens to a top as it spins down. This may well be one of the reasons the models have had difficulty this year.

I also think the relative cold above 80 N is due to a combination of Jet stream retreat and more fresh water insulation at the surface.

With regards to beating out 2013, I agree that if we continue to see warm storms over the Siberian side and ridging over the Canadian side, then we have a much stronger shot with likely something between 2010 and 2013. If the pattern flips back, it's closer to 2013 or possibly between 2013 and 2005.

With regards to Friv's observation of 48 mph winds, rain and 6 C temps in the CAA, that looks like a sea ice wrecker there.

6

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 31, 2014, 06:10:39 PM »

RE Gray Wolf's thoughts...

We have a river of air running from about 25 N in the Pacific, directly over the pole and down to the N Atlantic just above England. The shot is from yesterday, but the pattern remains in place today:

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/jet-stream-so-weak-winds-are-running-from-pacific-to-atlantic-across-the-north-pole/

We wouldn't have this pattern without severe weakness in the Jet Stream. A rupture over the Bering and on past 80 N driven in part by the flood of warm air issuing over the ESS. Essentially, you have a daisy chain of lows just catapulting the Pacific air over the pole.

7

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 30, 2014, 12:03:09 AM »

I'm chiefly looking at sea ice area and extent and the August 7 date. If we're not below 2013 values by that time, it is far less likely that we will break below 2013 by end season.

We appear to have a relatively melt favorable pattern emerging for some regions, so we should see values drop at a decent pace during this week. We had a decent ramp up in melt rates over the past few days, then today's readings look like a slow-down.

As for comparative weather, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on how 2014 compares to past seasons. I know we ended up with a late onset of above freezing temps above the 80 North line. Other than 2013, when was the last time this happened?

As for changes less related to weather, but more related to climate, we have quite a lot of fresh water now at the surface. This would tend to keep the high Arctic cooler during summer by limiting ocean to atmosphere heat transfer and by keeping more of the warm water at depth. I see this as more of a factor going forward, especially with increasing river flows and GIS melt.

8

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 29, 2014, 04:41:59 AM »

Anyone know what's up with the warm patch west of Svalbard (and SZ)? Could it be upwelling?

Yes.

We've had deep ocean warming throughout this region over the past two decades. Very rapid for deep water formations. We have deep warm water currents advancing from the south into these regions. Where they run up against shelf or slope zones, they upwell.

In addition, you have clathrate destabilization in that region off Svalbard. Relatively decent history of methane release there.

9

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 29, 2014, 04:36:07 AM »

Does that amount of heat in the ESS have any bearing on the clathrates on the seabed?

It's more an annual cumulative effect, but any spike adds stress.

S&S expedition on the Oden bound for that region now. So we may well get first hand observations.

These maps posted by Frivolous imply a warm frontal type boundary advancing into the Arctic through these zones. So though they are at first associated with highs, we could expect some liquid precipitation at the edge zone. Smoke from ongoing and rather large Siberian fires is more and more likely to become entrained as the pattern persists. Overall effect of warm air, advancing ridge, smoke, and leading edge precip is melt favorable.

Laptev Albedo is very low. Any more recession in ESS and Beaufort and you can end up with a melt wedge formation. Ocean surrounds ice on three sides. That can serve as a strong melt amplifier.

GFS shows warmth flowing out of Siberia through Monday. Other models are in rough agreement. Looks like a favorable for melt forecast should these conditions, as predicted, emerge.

10

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 29, 2014, 03:43:08 AM »

Warm, 15-25 mph winds over both the Laptev and the Beaufort.

The Laptev winds, running over 400-500 miles of open water are bound to generate a lot of fetch. That's probably the primary driver of the rapid ice edge recession we saw there over the past two days.

11

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: July 29, 2014, 03:07:15 AM »

RE the Laptev 'hole' / warm-up. May want to consider that the Arctic Ocean is stratified with a cold, fresh layer on top. If you have a warm water current below the surface, and we've had an invading flow of subsurface warmth beneath the Laptev and increasing for three years, you get more hydrate/methane destabilization. And if the destabilization is broad enough it drives upwelling. If the upwelling breaks the surface layer, you end up with warming.

South winds over the Laptev for two days also drive a bit of atmosphere-ocean heat transfer. May well see more of that over the coming days.

RE the ice configuration. Look at the past 3 years and you'll be surprised how similar they all are.

The surface ice is very weak and broken. So any major system is likely to have an exaggerated effect. In general, there are many feedbacks pushing for long term melt. The primary negative feedback of significance is an ongoing freshening, especially in the Beaufort. And that may be one reason why storms and wind have had so much impact there during recent years.

12

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: May 06, 2014, 11:15:32 PM »

Not comprehensive, but the tend to stay between -2 and -1.5 down to below 50M, or at least have.  Ekman pumping may change that.

Wanted to test a few storm dynamics assumptions in a warming Arctic environment.

13

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: May 06, 2014, 11:11:45 PM »

Might be more instructive to find a comparison between 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2012 with 1996 as relative base line.

14

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: May 06, 2014, 05:52:25 AM »

Does anyone know of a comprehensive measure for Arctic Ocean sub-sea ice water temperatures at a uniform depth? Say 5-20 meters?

15

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2014 Melting Season

« on: April 20, 2014, 02:30:37 AM »

Been watching that Greenland high and dipole in the models over the past few days. A rather exceptional pattern to say the least. Any good prognostications for direct impacts?

GFS surface shows near freezing temps circling the Arctic Ocean. We get a big temperature spike up to around 30-40+ F in some sections of Greenland.

Pattern seems to fade out pretty fast.

Thoughts?

16

Developers Corner / Re: The Distributed Arctic Sea Ice Model

« on: March 27, 2013, 07:02:58 PM »

The reason I mentioned the old SETI project on the other thread is it linked computers to run analysis during down time. You go to sleep, it cracked away running an analysis program. Perhaps something similar with a crowd sourced climate model? A program you could download in order to donate your computer's downtime.

I see the links. Will go and look at those threads now.

17

Developers Corner / Re: The Distributed Arctic Sea Ice Model

« on: March 27, 2013, 04:17:16 PM »

This project is just begging to be crowd sourced.

Cloud computing to run the model tweaks and test against real time for accuracy (instead of supercomputers).
Web page to provide basic definitions/links to source code sites/model descriptions and history of model accuracy and use.
Outreach to university professors to ask students to submit different variations of the models (multiple projects, worldwide, hopefully).
Method for individuals small teams to submit tweaks to computer models.
Possible industry participation (re-insurers other concerned parties).

A sort of model source code and analysis freeware/cloudware that everyone owns, everyone can participate in, and everyone can track the results from designed to aid/facilitate the work being done at the world's major climate offices.

I don't know if it will be successful. We do have weather models that are very accurate where they used to be less so. And I think that those evolved as weather dynamics became better and better defined. Ice is different. We don't have many eyes on the ice when compared to weather. We don't have so many people tracking it and identifying factors that influence melt. Same with global climate change. Still a pretty esoteric and ill understood process. I think broadening the base of work/interest might be a lot of help to the scientists as seems to have been the case with general weather.