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Feeltheburn

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #300 on: October 23, 2016, 05:46:26 AM »
That little thumbnail map in the lower right seems to indicate its all around the Arctic; looks like about 19 stations.

Brian Brettschneider has this interesting tweet. Unfortunely, it doesn't tell us if these stations from World Climate Service are just located in Alaska or around the whole Arctic.



Perhaps the heat is caused by the beneficial heat venting JD Allen says is the result of more open water later in the season? Possibly a good thing as heat escapes from the ocean?
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #301 on: October 23, 2016, 10:34:22 AM »
That little thumbnail map in the lower right seems to indicate its all around the Arctic; looks like about 19 stations.

Brian Brettschneider has this interesting tweet. Unfortunely, it doesn't tell us if these stations from World Climate Service are just located in Alaska or around the whole Arctic.



Perhaps the heat is caused by the beneficial heat venting JD Allen says is the result of more open water later in the season? Possibly a good thing as heat escapes from the ocean?
A good thing, the heat that, to start with, is there due to AGW, is being vented out. How relevant for next melting season? We'll see.

meddoc

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #302 on: October 23, 2016, 02:43:05 PM »
That Arctic Temps Graph resembles pretty much the global trend.
So- again- what's going on in the Arctic is progressing globally- probably with some inertia.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2016, 03:47:00 PM by meddoc »

Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #303 on: October 23, 2016, 05:54:34 PM »
That's it, SIE is now lowest on record for Oct 22nd - 6,279 mln km^2

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #304 on: October 23, 2016, 10:08:20 PM »
This interesting model forecast (4-days) of West Pacific extratropical cyclone moving above the jet stream and combining with a second low pressure vortex to move into the arctic circle.  This is another clear example of how midlatitude moisture (and heat) is finding it much easier to translate into the polar cell.  Also documented in "changes in mid-latitude hydrology" thread.

here: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,784.0.html
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #305 on: October 24, 2016, 05:41:40 AM »
Brian Brettschneider has this interesting tweet. Unfortunely, it doesn't tell us if these stations from World Climate Service are just located in Alaska or around the whole Arctic.



What to expect in the future?

http://www.nims.go.jp/water/temp_water.html
Temperature of ice water in a glass



It would be cool if there were really clear practical descriptive experiments based around this principle to describe to people what happens when the arctic melts completely.

Pmt111500

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #306 on: October 24, 2016, 08:41:15 AM »

What to expect in the future?

http://www.nims.go.jp/water/temp_water.html
Temperature of ice water in a glass



It would be cool if there were really clear practical descriptive experiments based around this principle to describe to people what happens when the arctic melts completely.

Nice to see that sort of an image again. Thanks.

Phil.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #307 on: October 24, 2016, 03:19:41 PM »

What to expect in the future?

http://www.nims.go.jp/water/temp_water.html
Temperature of ice water in a glass



It would be cool if there were really clear practical descriptive experiments based around this principle to describe to people what happens when the arctic melts completely.

Nice to see that sort of an image again. Thanks.

Trouble is this is characteristic of freshwater not seawater, you'd see something quite different with saltwater.

dnem

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #308 on: October 24, 2016, 03:30:54 PM »
Different how?  Would the basic physics differ?  Wouldn't the temperature of the water begin to increase much more quickly after all the ice had changed phase to water?

wili

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #309 on: October 24, 2016, 03:57:57 PM »
I would say an even bigger difference is that this is an ocean rather than a cup. But I think the basic point still holds. Once all the ice is gone, the great amount of energy necessary for phase shift from ice to water is now available to heat the whole water column, as long as there is a heat source.

But when winter comes, the surface will still cool and be colder than the subsurface temperatures (unlike what happens in most non-polar ocean waters where the thermocline generally has warmest waters at the surface, iirc).

Also of concern is what happens to the water vapor that an icefree ocean can generate, since water vapor is itself a powerful ghg. I think the effects of increased water vapor in the Arctic can already be seen in the anomalously warm conditions we see up there even 35 some days since the sun set up there.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #310 on: October 24, 2016, 04:03:15 PM »
Generally speaking in the Arctic Ocean there is stratification based on salinity (a halocline) rather than temperature (a thermocline)  but my (albeit limited) understanding is that this only enhances the temperature inversion.   And, it's the very existence of this temperature inversion that allows us to even have the Sea Ice.  So I don't get the "trouble is" comment at all.   

JMP

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #311 on: October 24, 2016, 04:19:47 PM »
I would say an even bigger difference is that this is an ocean rather than a cup. But I think the basic point still holds. Once all the ice is gone, the great amount of energy necessary for phase shift from ice to water is now available to heat the whole water column, as long as there is a heat source.

My understanding is that all the heat necessary to melt the ice is already available in the water column  but kept at depth due to salinity and so I'm thinking this means that the halocline stratification prevents the water column from absorbing and storing energy (at least in a straight forward way)? 


Also of concern is what happens to the water vapor that an icefree ocean can generate, since water vapor is itself a powerful ghg. I think the effects of increased water vapor in the Arctic can already be seen in the anomalously warm conditions we see up there even 35 some days since the sun set up there.
Doesn't the water vapor have to be at the right level in the atmosphere though?
 

 

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #312 on: October 24, 2016, 05:17:20 PM »
The gap between 2016 and 2007/2012 is slowly growing, SIE is now 70k below 2007 and 350k below 2012 for Oct 23rd.

wili

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #313 on: October 24, 2016, 05:53:35 PM »
Good point about salinity. Fresh water rivers will continue to flow into the Arctic Ocean, continuing to provide it with a relatively fresh water 'lens.'

As to water vapor, its behavior as a ghg does not depend on altitude, but when it takes the form of clouds, then the effects do get more complicated and altitude is a crucial factor in that, as I understand it.
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #314 on: October 24, 2016, 09:28:04 PM »

<snip>
Temperature of ice water in a glass



It would be cool if there were really clear practical descriptive experiments based around this principle to describe to people what happens when the arctic melts completely.

Nice to see that sort of an image again. Thanks.

Trouble is this is characteristic of freshwater not seawater, you'd see something quite different with saltwater.
Not really; the temperature thresholds will change, but the curve is governed by the energy taken up by the phase change, not salinity.  The net energetic effect on the system and sensible heat will still be the same.
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seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #315 on: October 24, 2016, 11:15:32 PM »
The Siberia/Alaska, 949 hPa - 1030 hPa dipole established predicted for tomorrow morning (GFS today 12Z prediction for Tue 06Z), injecting atmospheric and oceanic heat into the Arctic.
The DMI temp maps shows BIG SST temperature anomalies at both sides of the Bering strait; for the last 30 days the flow of water through the strait has been northward and the current winds will keep the flow going strong in that direction.
There may be another interesting effect due to the strong winds pulling surface water away from the Alaskan Arctic coast and forcing upwelling of saltier warmer water, but not sure if that is important, depending if the winds do persist.
https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/beaufortsss_nowcast_anim30d.gif
« Last Edit: October 24, 2016, 11:23:59 PM by seaicesailor »

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #316 on: October 24, 2016, 11:42:50 PM »
I have heard some doubts 'round and about, as to whether all the peripherals will be covered with ice at the end of this season. I personally believe that if these are covered it will be by weak, thin short lived ice. Especially so in the Barents,Kara, Laptev, and East Siberian Seas. It will be a while yet before these can even start to freeze over.
ESS might be the exception out of those.


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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #317 on: October 25, 2016, 02:57:56 AM »
I have heard some doubts 'round and about, as to whether all the peripherals will be covered with ice at the end of this season. I personally believe that if these are covered it will be by weak, thin short lived ice. Especially so in the Barents,Kara, Laptev, and East Siberian Seas. It will be a while yet before these can even start to freeze over.
ESS might be the exception out of those.

Last year IIRC  the edges of Beaufort and southern CAA were still open, as was most of the eastern ESS.  The Laptev had already frozen up to the eastern Kara.

By the time we get to late November, the western Kara was still mostly open, along with the Chukchi and the Barents. Everything else had pretty well frozen up, in spite of the earlier heat.

I'm confident the pattern will be much the same this year, with the peripherals getting pretty much covered over by the first of December.  What's not so sure to me is how much the ice will thicken and strengthen between the winter solstice and spring equinox.

The pattern I'd watch for would be strong generally persistent high pressure systems setting up over (1) northern Greenland/NE CAA and (2) in Siberia north and west of the Sea of Okhotsk.

Combine those with the "cyclone cannons" along the relevant eastern continental seaboards, and I think we'll have a recipe for driving cold arctic air out of the CAB into central Siberia and to a lesser degree, down the Canadian Shield and across Quebec in NAM, with strong inputs of heat and moisture to be introduced across the Bering/Chukchi and NE Barents.

The Greenland high will be important and dangerous from the standpoint that it may drive considerable surviving older ice out through the Fram, or into our still active Atlantic front "Killing zone" for the ice.  I think we will see ice driven more persistently towards the Barents, even exceeding the coverage we saw last year, but I expect it will be ephemeral, and will draw back whenever there isn't enough wind to drive ice south to replace that which will rapidly melt out.

I will be interested to see if my hypothesis plays out.

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Adam Ash

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #318 on: October 25, 2016, 04:24:20 AM »
With the on-going export of ice via Fram and CAA the volume exported from the north must, I guess, be replaced with a similar volume of water imported from the south.  Are there any indications of higher-than-usual northbound currents?

idunno

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #319 on: October 25, 2016, 07:53:14 AM »
I find the animation of changing sea ice temps, from the Graphs page, very informative, and it's not very clear from the site that it is animated. It's worth a watch...

http://polarportal.dk/en/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/sea-ice-temperature/

Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #320 on: October 25, 2016, 04:46:22 PM »
The gap between 2016 and 2007/2012 is slowly growing, SIE is now 70k below 2007 and 350k below 2012 for Oct 23rd.

Oct 24: 2016 is 107k below 2007 and 409k below 2012. (and 1.2 Mln below 2015)

SCYetti

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #321 on: October 25, 2016, 08:11:45 PM »
Brian Brettschneider has this interesting tweet. Unfortunely, it doesn't tell us if these stations from World Climate Service are just located in Alaska or around the whole Arctic.



What to expect in the future?

http://www.nims.go.jp/water/temp_water.html
Temperature of ice water in a glass



It would be cool if there were really clear practical descriptive experiments based around this principle to describe to people what happens when the arctic melts completely.

Sea water would have a different result due in part because of the density of sea water. Fresh water is the most dense at about 4C. Sea water continues to become more dense until it reaches freezing point of about -1.8C. If you did this experiment with sea water I would expect the temperature at the top and bottom would both be -1.8C.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #322 on: October 25, 2016, 09:44:26 PM »

This is a useful resource for looking at density of seawater:

http://linkingweatherandclimate.com/ocean/waterdensity.php

Part of the preservation of the halocline is melting of freshwater ice (along with freshwater input from rivers). I think I read somewhere that ice becomes 'fresher' as it ages, the pockets of brine eventually being expelled. If so I'd expect younger ice to be saltier and melt <0°C and also that the halocline will be weaker as the melt water is also saltier.

NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #323 on: October 25, 2016, 10:14:38 PM »
Personally I have my own hobby horse.

Go to the CT interactive chart, deselect everything after 2006.  Look at the comparison between what happened then and what is happening now.

Then have a look at the solar charts and compare 2006 with 2016.

Then we look at the 2006 80N temp anomaly chart and the 2016 80N anomaly chart.  Now I recall reading here that the temperatures drop then pop back up again and stay higher until the ocean has released it's heat.

Add to it the volume comparison between 2006 and 2016 plus the area and extent comparison between 2006 and 2016.

And I believe we have reached the same cycle from a different start point.  But we will probably see the same kind of end.  Granted we have to throw a huge El Nino into the pot and higher start temperatures and significantly more CO2 and Arctic methane to sequester the heat.

Then remember what 2007 started off as....

I think it is going to be a most instructive winter and following melt season.  I would be extremely happy to be totally wrong.  But it's not looking like it.

Here's the fun thing.

How do you compare one season with another when the only thing which is relatively constant is the solar output??  The temperatures are higher, globally, the CO2 is higher, Globally, the Methane is higher, locally, the Arctic ice is radically lower in volume.

Yet there is an expectation that we can compare one season with another.  I don't believe we can.  I believe we can only look at how each season unfolds and try to map it into a pattern of how the seasons have unfolded before.

Because when everything else is different, temp, CO2, Ice volume, Methane, then I would expect the end result to follow the cycle fairly closely but have greater impacts as the end result.  Even the weather will be markedly different.

Setting us up for a 2006/7 style transition into a perfect storm of melting.

Looking at 2007/2012, to me, won't do it.  Because, to me, we're not in that cycle.  That is to come.  The reason we're close to those levels is to do with sequestered heat and CO2 and methane, as I see it.  Not because it's some epic melt season in 2016, it wasn't, June and July were nowhere.

Just step way back and look at it in another way.  Not in the details, but in broad.

Epic start to the year in spring
Mediocre melt in the high melt time
Miss by a long way for the record.

What follows? 

Record lows going into the heart of winter.
Huge melt ponding in the spring
Perfect storm of melting in June/July/August

Or some variation of the kind because we're unlikely to see a 2007 year any time soon as the conditions can't support it. The ice is too fragile, too much heat and moisture is escaping into the weather systems.

But the type of melting year should be close.

I'm going to watch sporadically but it's already unfolding that way.
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Geoff

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #324 on: October 26, 2016, 03:31:00 AM »

This is a useful resource for looking at density of seawater:

http://linkingweatherandclimate.com/ocean/waterdensity.php

Part of the preservation of the halocline is melting of freshwater ice (along with freshwater input from rivers). I think I read somewhere that ice becomes 'fresher' as it ages, the pockets of brine eventually being expelled. If so I'd expect younger ice to be saltier and melt <0°C and also that the halocline will be weaker as the melt water is also saltier.

Huh - "As mentioned earlier, the maximum density of water affects the convection and ice formation in fresh water. For oceans, the salinity is usually 35 psu. For this level of salinity, the temperature of maximum density is below the freezing point which means as water cools on the surface, it will convect and mix with the water below. There are a few places in the world where salinity is below the critical 24.7 psu. For example, in the Siberian Sea there is water from rivers lowering the salinity and ice forms much sooner there than in other places."

Makes sense.

I posted the picture mostly to show what happens to temperatures once the ice is gone, and the speed at which it increases, but this actually explains pretty well a pretty important mechanism in the freezing season.

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #325 on: October 26, 2016, 04:49:39 AM »
This is coming up via Climate Reanalyzer in about 3 days time or so.

This for me qualifies as a breath-taking image - two huge warm wet air masses colliding on the eastern side of the central Arctic basin....
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bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #326 on: October 26, 2016, 05:14:57 AM »
This is coming up via Climate Reanalyzer in about 3 days time or so.

This for me qualifies as a breath-taking image - two huge warm wet air masses colliding on the eastern side of the central Arctic basin....
While the colors are red the airmasses are still below freezing at that point (at least in some areas) so that is where the pretty colors sort of misrepresent the reality. Yes it is way way warmer vs normal but if temps are still below 32 the effect is different.

If you have a huge areas of above normal temps but the avg is still in the 20s (what will probably happen this winter) the enhanced precipitation of snow ends up overwhelming other factors, at least temporarily (for now), resulting in additional upper and mid-latitude cooling.

We are now seeing this occur over the entire Northern Hemisphere and I am terrified of the coming winter. I strongly suspect it will be the most severe in the past century for many locations with continuous bouts of record or near-record cold interspersed with some warmth.

I am looking at Nov15-Dec15 specifically for Eastern North America at the moment and I think there may be a signal for a very major East Coast event around Thanksgiving. We shall see.

In any case, I have to say that I have not seen any sort of substantial discussion about how autumnal snow totals across the NHEM are now increasing each and every year. Fairly soon I suspect the increase will overwhelm warmth outright in places like Quebec but we are still a few years from that.

The logical conclusion from Hansen's model output is that an ice age is about to begin (surprise surprise!). What people have forgotten is that a background state of +1.5C doesn't mean that locations like Quebec are always +1.5C and in fact we may soon see annual temperatures begin to fall in locations near the Greenland cold pool (it already seems to be happening).

The spatial distribution of the warmth is currently being optimized to form a heat pump directly into Greenland/the Arctic and this will continue until the balance is equalized. And the dissolution of humanity's collective farts through the vast mass of the Greenland ice sheet results in an equation where the cold output is probably sufficient to overwhelm the heat input over a very substantial area for at least some kind of length of time.

Winter is coming...

« Last Edit: October 26, 2016, 05:20:07 AM by bbr2314 »

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #327 on: October 26, 2016, 05:38:27 AM »
I know this is the wrong thread for this, so I will keep it simple and post further info in the proper threads, but just in case anyone is unaware; Beginning early September, Antarctic SIE took a nosedive and, looking at the JAXA graph there appears to be  a goodly chance of a record setting year there. Per an article I posted on the What's new in Antarctica thread today, warm water is attacking the ice from the bottom. This has been an outstanding year for overall ocean temps. and evidently currents have taken warmer waters into the area.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #328 on: October 26, 2016, 06:39:31 AM »
The logical conclusion from Hansen's model output is that an ice age is about to begin (surprise surprise!).
Isn't that a debunked denier trope?

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #329 on: October 26, 2016, 06:42:07 AM »
@bbr,

I see you have found a new extreme theory to fancy, totally opposite from the last one. What about that "blue ocean" event we were so eagerly waiting for?  ::)


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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #330 on: October 26, 2016, 07:38:17 AM »
@bbr,

I see you have found a new extreme theory to fancy, totally opposite from the last one. What about that "blue ocean" event we were so eagerly waiting for?  ::)

Aikimox has a point BBR, but there are points in your thesis that intrigue me and I suspect there's more here than meets the eye. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying that temps in the arctic, though warmer than normal are still below freezing which will result in increased snowfall. Taking it to the next step, your thinking is the increased snowfall could potentially overwhelm the warming trend we've seen and result in an extended period of cooling? That's quite a reach, but I'd like to know more details.

Keep in mind everyone, that "outside the box" thinking seldom comes from conventional wisdom. The "blue ocean" event didn't happen this year, but if circumstances were different, we could have seen a new record low in sea ice area, extent and volume. Before BBR's assertions are dismissed "out of hand", let's be open at least to what further points he has to make.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #331 on: October 26, 2016, 08:14:12 AM »
Looks like  Arctic SIE is headed toward the 7M km2 mark in just a matter of days.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #332 on: October 26, 2016, 08:34:37 AM »
Looks like  Arctic SIE is headed toward the 7M km2 mark in just a matter of days.

While previous record holders 2012 and 2007 already had surpassed the 7M km mark at this
time and 2015 was even approaching 8M km.  Yet here we are with a meager 6.68 and the
current trajectory doesn't suggest it is playing catch-up anytime soon.

Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #333 on: October 26, 2016, 08:37:40 AM »
@bbr,

I see you have found a new extreme theory to fancy, totally opposite from the last one. What about that "blue ocean" event we were so eagerly waiting for?  ::)

Aikimox has a point BBR, but there are points in your thesis that intrigue me and I suspect there's more here than meets the eye. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying that temps in the arctic, though warmer than normal are still below freezing which will result in increased snowfall. Taking it to the next step, your thinking is the increased snowfall could potentially overwhelm the warming trend we've seen and result in an extended period of cooling? That's quite a reach, but I'd like to know more details.

Keep in mind everyone, that "outside the box" thinking seldom comes from conventional wisdom. The "blue ocean" event didn't happen this year, but if circumstances were different, we could have seen a new record low in sea ice area, extent and volume. Before BBR's assertions are dismissed "out of hand", let's be open at least to what further points he has to make.

Open for sure. But we need more than just "more snowfall/colder winter => Ice Age" to start taking this claim seriously. One of the signature features of global warming is the extremes, their frequency and severity. Yes, it's likely that this winter will be cold in some regions. However, it would require more than just a few storms to create a fast transition into an ice age. Pole Reversal? Ocean current disruption? Low solar activity? Post WWW3 nuclear winter?

 Right now we have C02, methane, and a few dozen other positive feedback loops driving us into the unknown. Both Antarctic and Arctic SIE are around lowest on record. 2016 is set to become the hottest year on record and I wouldn't be surprised to see a blue ocean event next summer. I'd rather start looking into the possibilities of abrupt heating after we reach near zero arctic ice cover. How about 5c in 12 years? To me it sounds way more real than an ice age at this point. 

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #334 on: October 26, 2016, 08:42:32 AM »
@bbr,

I see you have found a new extreme theory to fancy, totally opposite from the last one. What about that "blue ocean" event we were so eagerly waiting for?  ::)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying that temps in the arctic, though warmer than normal are still below freezing which will result in increased snowfall. Taking it to the next step, your thinking is the increased snowfall could potentially overwhelm the warming trend we've seen and result in an extended period of cooling? That's quite a reach, but I'd like to know more details.
Before BBR's assertions are dismissed "out of hand", let's be open at least to what further points he has to make.

To be honest, the first time I read this thesis it was intriguing, though in my mind undoubtedly wrong. I think that was some months ago. Now that I've read the thesis for the twentieth time (at least) it becomes a repetitive extreme theory.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #335 on: October 26, 2016, 09:08:09 AM »
@bbr,

I see you have found a new extreme theory to fancy, totally opposite from the last one. What about that "blue ocean" event we were so eagerly waiting for?  ::)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying that temps in the arctic, though warmer than normal are still below freezing which will result in increased snowfall. Taking it to the next step, your thinking is the increased snowfall could potentially overwhelm the warming trend we've seen and result in an extended period of cooling? That's quite a reach, but I'd like to know more details.
Before BBR's assertions are dismissed "out of hand", let's be open at least to what further points he has to make.

To be honest, the first time I read this thesis it was intriguing, though in my mind undoubtedly wrong. I think that was some months ago. Now that I've read the thesis for the twentieth time (at least) it becomes a repetitive extreme theory.

It is beginning to look less and less like theory but you are welcome to disagree. Below is what the GFS/CMC ensembles project for D10. The map stays mostly the same, cooling more in North America now vs current, which will be bigger shift going through 11/15 IMO.




jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #336 on: October 26, 2016, 09:12:09 AM »
This is coming up via Climate Reanalyzer in about 3 days time or so.
<snip>
While the colors are red ... <snip> ...Of course... </snip>

<snip> I am terrified of the coming winter. ...with good reason, but perhaps not for the same details...</snip>

<snip>The logical conclusion from Hansen's model output is that an ice age is about to begin ... oh for crying out loud... </snip>

<snip> What people have forgotten is that a background state of +1.5C... ...no we haven't... </snip>

<snip> ...where the cold output is probably sufficient to overwhelm the heat input... ...big and very iffy assertion which really doesn't have a lot of support.  Very hard to justify when you examine how cold the CAB *should* be right now...</snip>


My point was, not that temperature were above zero, but that the distribution, and therefore the *flow* of heat is/will be well and truly scrambled, and not in any sort of way which is supportive to the production of ice, even if there's enough flow out of the ocean surface for some portions of it to freeze.
This space for Rent.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #337 on: October 26, 2016, 09:18:20 AM »
@bbr,

I see you have found a new extreme theory to fancy, totally opposite from the last one. What about that "blue ocean" event we were so eagerly waiting for?  ::)

Aikimox has a point BBR, but there are points in your thesis that intrigue me and I suspect there's more here than meets the eye. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're saying that temps in the arctic, though warmer than normal are still below freezing which will result in increased snowfall. Taking it to the next step, your thinking is the increased snowfall could potentially overwhelm the warming trend we've seen and result in an extended period of cooling? That's quite a reach, but I'd like to know more details.

Keep in mind everyone, that "outside the box" thinking seldom comes from conventional wisdom. The "blue ocean" event didn't happen this year, but if circumstances were different, we could have seen a new record low in sea ice area, extent and volume. Before BBR's assertions are dismissed "out of hand", let's be open at least to what further points he has to make.

The details are as follows.

As we continue to see more warming the Arctic will continue accumulating heat until the point where it hits a state change (possibly what we are seeing occur this year?).

While the Arctic will hit this point soon (if it hasn't already), Greenland is *very different*. Unlike the sea ice Greenland has a mass something like 10,000 times as great (I know I've posted these silly ideas a bunch of times and done the calcs before, but it is a veeeeery large factor above).

So while conventional thinking says "oh when you melt all the sea ice Greenland keeps melting too and everything keeps getting hotter" that is literally a bunch of idiotic garbage.

When sea ice hits the tipping point we may or may not have passed already the heat burden for the Northern Hemisphere falls entirely on Greenland. But while it takes a long time to discharge heat that accumulates from the Arctic -- which is why it keeps warming each year -- when Greenland starts to bear the brunt of NHEM heating, the reaction is very different.

Crucially, as GHG forcing increases and atmospheric heights rise/"Arctic Amplification" increases, I think the planet's topographic features also begin to have a more pronounced effect on weather. Higher heights = weaker jet stream = more impact of low-altitude topography on sensible weather.

That brings me back to my point regarding Greenland. It seems to me that once Arctic sea ice degrades to the point we are at now, the atmospheric/oceanic heat plumes that would've previously dissipated somewhere over the Arctic ice sheet through radiational cooling or whatever other process are instead pushed over Greenland, falling out the bottom as cold-ass-air that ends up filtering into either Europe or North America.

I suspect that the net cooling effect of Greenland on a plume of hot air is substantially more significant than the Arctic, such that removing the Arctic results in an *increase* in the planet's ability to resolve heat until such time as most of Greenland melts.

Perhaps my math is wrong here but if it is I don't see why the weather maps look the way they do and why Hansen's maps look even worse...

This would also explain melt pulses and why they have occurred the way they have previously. The point at where the Arctic begins to be ice free is the same time that Greenland begins discharging mass. I suspect it is a natural response to heat accumulation leading to an ice free Arctic, which is why the Arctic is so rarely ice-free (or at least why each blip over the past however many million yrs has been quickly followed by ice ages).

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #338 on: October 26, 2016, 09:18:47 AM »
This is coming up via Climate Reanalyzer in about 3 days time or so.
<snip>
While the colors are red ... <snip> ...Of course... </snip>

<snip> I am terrified of the coming winter. ...with good reason, but perhaps not for the same details...</snip>

<snip>The logical conclusion from Hansen's model output is that an ice age is about to begin ... oh for crying out loud... </snip>

<snip> What people have forgotten is that a background state of +1.5C... ...no we haven't... </snip>

<snip> ...where the cold output is probably sufficient to overwhelm the heat input... ...big and very iffy assertion which really doesn't have a lot of support.  Very hard to justify when you examine how cold the CAB *should* be right now...</snip>


My point was, not that temperature were above zero, but that the distribution, and therefore the *flow* of heat is/will be well and truly scrambled, and not in any sort of way which is supportive to the production of ice, even if there's enough flow out of the ocean surface for some portions of it to freeze.
Oh, I agree with your points, wasn't disagreeing with you just mentioning. :)

oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #339 on: October 26, 2016, 09:37:52 AM »
I think that's enough for this general freezing season thread. Would you be so kind as to open a dedicated thread for this, and limit long posts about this subject to that thread?

Jim Pettit

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #340 on: October 26, 2016, 01:21:42 PM »
Looks like  Arctic SIE is headed toward the 7M km2 mark in just a matter of days.

Yes, IJIS extent will indeed cross over the 7M km2 mark within the next, say, three-six days. About time; it's the only year not to have reached that threshold this late in the year. In fact, 2016 SIE is now 1.1M km2 lower than both the five-year and ten-year averages for the date. That's primarily due to two factors, of course: 1) the near-record summer minimum, and 2) the anomalously low amount of extent growth so fa this month, as seen in this graph:


DoomInTheUK

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #341 on: October 26, 2016, 03:22:17 PM »
Jim, it's even more remarkable when you consider how early the minimum was. We're nearly two months into the re-freeze and it's still a fairly sluggish growth.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #342 on: October 26, 2016, 04:22:21 PM »
I'm just not seeing how bbr's hypothesis works. Sure a melting greenland might cause a drop in nearby sea surface temps, causing an increase in the severity of north atlantic storms, and maybe some places like northern europe might get cooler overall due to weather pattern shifts, but the bottom line is that there already is an enormous amount of extra heat in the earth's system, and that will rapidly accelerate in the Arctic as more and more ocean becomes open water.

I really doubt that how the air swirls around Greenland is really going to somehow get that heat out into space or absorb it into the ice sheet.

I think it might snow a lot more over northern lands because of the moisture coming off of an open Arctic Ocean, but to imagine a general cooling trend to happen, we'd have to imagine that a significant amount of that snow would have to last all the way through the summer. And if the Arctic is mostly open in the summer and the avg temps are going to be or already are 5C higher than they were pre-Anthropocene, then there's no way land snow won't melt out quickly.

I think it's more plausible that we end up with an equable climate at some point if the loss of Arctic sea ice stops the jet stream and polar cell from forming and there's no longer a barrier to heat from the tropics dissipating into the Arctic, but I'm just guessing there.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #343 on: October 26, 2016, 04:55:49 PM »
Oh, I agree with your points, wasn't disagreeing with you just mentioning. :)
I think what you may be failing to remember is that only the surface area of the ice is effective to produce cooling, and so while the amount of ice on Greenland is far higher than the amount of Arctic sea ice, the effective cooling of the Greenland ice sheet is less than it is for the sea ice because the area that is in direct contact with air is much lower for Greenland than it is for the sea ice.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #344 on: October 26, 2016, 04:58:27 PM »
The gap between 2016 and 2007/2012 is slowly growing, SIE is now 70k below 2007 and 350k below 2012 for Oct 23rd.

Oct 24: 2016 is 107k below 2007 and 409k below 2012. (and 1.2 Mln below 2015)

Oct 25: 2016 is 164k below 2007 and 430k below 2012.

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #345 on: October 26, 2016, 05:53:20 PM »
1) the near-record summer minimum, and 2) the anomalously low amount of extent growth so fa this month, as seen in this graph:

just about to agree on terms, the latter, (2) is not a cause IMO but a result of the real causes that are:

a) record above average temps

b) large amounts of heat in the system (water) measured through far above average water temps in some regions.

nevertheless i got your point, just trying to distinguish between cause and effect and IMO the slow re-freeze in october is an effect, not a cause, hope it's well taken, ready to stand corrected if i got that wrong

effbeh

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #346 on: October 26, 2016, 06:10:37 PM »
It seems to me that once Arctic sea ice degrades to the point we are at now, the atmospheric/oceanic heat plumes that would've previously dissipated somewhere over the Arctic ice sheet through radiational cooling or whatever other process are instead pushed over Greenland, falling out the bottom as cold-ass-air that ends up filtering into either Europe or North America.

At least for Europe I remain skeptic.   Even if the air has been cold over Greenland, there is a lot of ocean in between.  NW or NNW don't have the potential for cold-ass-air up to now and I doubt this is going to change anytime soon.  Severe winter usually involves a weather pattern that cuts us of from NW or NNW winds, e.g. in form of high pressure over Fennoscandia.  Cold-ass-air is imported as a bone dry continenal air mass from E or -worse- NE.  At least if it is still available there...

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #347 on: October 26, 2016, 06:11:50 PM »
Oh, I agree with your points, wasn't disagreeing with you just mentioning. :)
I think what you may be failing to remember is that only the surface area of the ice is effective to produce cooling, and so while the amount of ice on Greenland is far higher than the amount of Arctic sea ice, the effective cooling of the Greenland ice sheet is less than it is for the sea ice because the area that is in direct contact with air is much lower for Greenland than it is for the sea ice.
That is incorrect. As Greenland melts it becomes more porous and the gigantic fractures running through the ice sheet turn it into swiss cheese. In fact, air passing through/over Greenland encounters substantially more ice surface area that it does over the Arctic. The melt ponds that disappear as they drain through the sheet also create huge tunnels/chasms for air to funnel through which further enhances Greenland's cooling abilities.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #348 on: October 26, 2016, 06:16:15 PM »
It seems to me that once Arctic sea ice degrades to the point we are at now, the atmospheric/oceanic heat plumes that would've previously dissipated somewhere over the Arctic ice sheet through radiational cooling or whatever other process are instead pushed over Greenland, falling out the bottom as cold-ass-air that ends up filtering into either Europe or North America.

At least for Europe I remain skeptic.   Even if the air has been cold over Greenland, there is a lot of ocean in between.  NW or NNW don't have the potential for cold-ass-air up to now and I doubt this is going to change anytime soon.  Severe winter usually involves a weather pattern that cuts us of from NW or NNW winds, e.g. in form of high pressure over Fennoscandia.  Cold-ass-air is imported as a bone dry continenal air mass from E or -worse- NE.  At least if it is still available there...
Siberia works too. In fact it seems southern Siberia has been very very very cold vs normal.

I suspect this has been enhanced this year by the gradient. Since Siberia is now completely surrounded by open water to the N, with this year's waters taking in the most heat on record, the resulting differential as you head into autumn (land becomes snow-covered, creating a huge gradient w the newly warmish ocean waters) feeds huge plumes of moisture over the continents resulting in record snowfalls as we have seen this year.

It must be remembered that record snowfalls in September/October have a much larger impact on global albedo balance than they would in Dec/Jan as well. A substantial increase in autumnal snow cover will have a very large effect on planetary albedo forcing and I think (which is another reason that the anomalies this yr have been so persistently - across Eurasia).

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #349 on: October 26, 2016, 06:27:22 PM »
1) the near-record summer minimum, and 2) the anomalously low amount of extent growth so fa this month, as seen in this graph:

just about to agree on terms, the latter, (2) is not a cause IMO but a result of the real causes that are:

a) record above average temps

b) large amounts of heat in the system (water) measured through far above average water temps in some regions.

nevertheless i got your point, just trying to distinguish between cause and effect and IMO the slow re-freeze in october is an effect, not a cause, hope it's well taken, ready to stand corrected if i got that wrong

It is not a cause, it is the cause