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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #500 on: November 03, 2016, 12:57:10 AM »
From the Arctic Sea Ice Blog. Pertinent to current situation in the Arctic.
This year has been an outstanding year for ocean heat. Why shouldn't it be reflected in the Arctic?

" the Monterey researcher believes these models have seriously underestimated some key melting processes. In particular, Professor Maslowski is adamant that models need to incorporate more realistic representations of the way warm water is moving into the Arctic basin from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

"My claim is that the global climate models underestimate the amount of heat delivered to the sea ice by oceanic advection," Professor Maslowski said.
"

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/ocean-heat-flux.html

"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Blizzard92

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #501 on: November 03, 2016, 05:35:30 AM »
Updated monthly rankings [38 = warmest]... (from https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/793961158688415745)

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Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #502 on: November 03, 2016, 06:18:22 AM »
Meanwhile we are over 500k km2 below 2012 for Arctic and now matching 1986 for lowest extent in Antarctica...

And we are still heading strong... into the unknown. SIE is now 670k km2 below 2012, 1.1mln below 2007, and 1.5mln below 2015. Yes, it's obvious that in a few days/weeks the refreeze will resume and get back to "normal", but the new dynamics in the region has been set and we can only hope that there are negative feedback mechanisms that can potentially restore the balance. I wonder how long it would take for our race to realize that once we transition from the unprecedented to the abrupt, it's virtually game over regardless of your location or social status. Does anyone else have a gut feeling that the life as we know it is about to change for all of us? Or am I nuts? And I'm not talking 2100. More like 2020 the latest. Can the global economy take a big impact of a sudden climate change and keep going as usual? 

etienne

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #503 on: November 03, 2016, 06:18:47 AM »
Updated monthly rankings [38 = warmest]...

Thank you, very good graph. Looks like 2002 would be a turning point.

When looking at the extent graphs, the turning point seems to be more around 2005-2006. Probably inertia in the system.

Etienne

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #504 on: November 03, 2016, 07:30:14 AM »
Meanwhile we are over 500k km2 below 2012 for Arctic and now matching 1986 for lowest extent in Antarctica...

And we are still heading strong... into the unknown. SIE is now 670k km2 below 2012, 1.1mln below 2007, and 1.5mln below 2015. Yes, it's obvious that in a few days/weeks the refreeze will resume and get back to "normal", but the new dynamics in the region has been set and we can only hope that there are negative feedback mechanisms that can potentially restore the balance. I wonder how long it would take for our race to realize that once we transition from the unprecedented to the abrupt, it's virtually game over regardless of your location or social status. Does anyone else have a gut feeling that the life as we know it is about to change for all of us? Or am I nuts? And I'm not talking 2100. More like 2020 the latest. Can the global economy take a big impact of a sudden climate change and keep going as usual?
Me, yes: basically I hear you.

The multi year sea ice is falling apart and, symbolism being aside, it means real politik.
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They didn't understand
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vigilius

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #505 on: November 03, 2016, 08:29:06 AM »
I expect everyone here has seen this, but FWIW-

"The Arctic Ocean seems to have forgotten it's supposed to be freezing up right now."
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-sea-ice-slow-growth-20838

NeilT

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #506 on: November 03, 2016, 11:44:57 AM »
In 1996 there was a somewhat similar jump. Here is the temperatures and sea extent for 1996.

Archimid, thanks for that link to the beta NSIDC resource.  I've been looking for something like that for years, the CT one has colours too similar to each other in older years to help.

What I've been trying to say, for a while now, is that there is a 10 year cycle with a mid point 5 year cycle, roughly, going on here.

I don't have time to do the images right now as I'm sick and late for work (not a good combination), but here is the gist.

Take everything out but 1992 - 1996 and copy the image.
Do it again for 2002 - 2006
And again for 2012 - 2016

If you ignore everything but the re-freeze you see a pattern emerging.  The sudden step sideways on the re-freeze leading to the next season with anomalously weak and thinner ice.  Also you see the bump is moving earlier and larger.

If you then select only 1996/7, 2006/7 and 2016, you see a pattern emerging which, if repeated  a third time, will drive the ice almost to extinction in 2017.

Have to head to work now.
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Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #507 on: November 03, 2016, 01:58:14 PM »
Does anyone else have a gut feeling that the life as we know it is about to change for all of us? Or am I nuts? And I'm not talking 2100. More like 2020 the latest. Can the global economy take a big impact of a sudden climate change and keep going as usual? 

I think the chance for catastrophic destruction is less than 50% but higher than 10%. That's too high, way too high for comfort. But I also think that if the arctic does recover in the next year, then things might flip for a little while. It is likely that the oceans will soon flip to a cooler state and we enter  a warming hiatus for a few years. That will buy us time. Maybe Geoengineering projects get underway that save the Arctic sea ice, prolonging abrupt change further into the future. But we need the ice to grow. If it doesn't recover we need an extremely mild melting season.

We might be pushing our luck too hard.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #508 on: November 03, 2016, 02:46:46 PM »
The oceans can't flip anymore. That's the problem now.For the most part, the depths have heated . For the waters to heat more, everything else has to also, to stay in balance.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #509 on: November 03, 2016, 03:23:18 PM »
The oceans can't flip anymore. That's the problem now.For the most part, the depths have heated . For the waters to heat more, everything else has to also, to stay in balance.


I still have hope for cold reserves on the deep oceans and ice melt from glaciers. Maybe the earth lost a lot of heat to space during the last el niño. Also for what is worth, the sun has been very quiet. Maybe that's enough for a respite.   But as you say, the oceans look very hot. It also seems as if the deeper you get the hotter it gets.

The image attached is from: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/


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etienne

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #510 on: November 03, 2016, 03:24:53 PM »
I think the chance for catastrophic destruction is less than 50% but higher than 10%.

Hello,

Catastrophic is very subjective. Was Sandy a catastrophy ? Is drough in California a catastrophy ? Is sea level rise in Norfolk VA a catastrophy ? In 2008, there were many debates on peak oil, and somebody said something smart : that peak oil is a slow worsening of the living conditions, as long as you live in a rich country and you're able to keep your job, you don't feel it too much. I believe that climate change is the same, if you're lucky, you can just forget about it and keep going.

Best regards,

Etienne

Blizzard92

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #511 on: November 03, 2016, 03:47:25 PM »
I think the full version may be too large for the forums, but I've updated the Arctic mean surface air temperature plot from January through October --> https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/794187142251429888
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Archimid

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #512 on: November 03, 2016, 04:17:34 PM »
I guess that the are  more objective words than "catastrophic destruction". "Tipping point",  "paradigm shift" or "state change" are probably better to describe what will happen after the first BOE, but that does not qualifies if the change will be positive or negative.  I think catastrophic destruction is a more accurate description, even if it is scary.

Quote
Was Sandy a catastrophy ?

To those directly affected, yes. Globally no.

Quote
Is drough in California a catastrophy ?


Not yet, but once the point is reached where demand outstrips supply things start to change. There are so me low hanging fruit water savings that can be done to postpone catastrophe, but those are being used now. There could be a point where it becomes locally catastrophic in less than a year.

Quote
Is sea level rise in Norfolk VA a catastrophy ?

Not yet, but a sudden melt pulse could change that in a matter of days. Sea level rise is on the milimeter scale only globally. Locally, the sky is the limit.


Quote
I believe that climate change is the same, if you're lucky, you can just forget about it and keep going.

Climate change is like that if there was no BOE until 2050, temperatures hit 2C by 2100 and sea level rises by a meter in a century. But if those events all happen within the next 10 years, they will change your life regardless of who you are.

I think off it as a highly connected network. if you remove some nodes, the network remains connected specially if there is replacements of nodes or connections. But if you remove too many nodes it stops being connected.

Because of this I think the people with the most money will lose the most, but life loss will be equitable for all, determined only by the geography of the planet and the roll of the dice.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

effbeh

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #513 on: November 03, 2016, 07:30:00 PM »
Does anyone else have a gut feeling that the life as we know it is about to change for all of us? Or am I nuts? And I'm not talking 2100. More like 2020 the latest. Can the global economy take a big impact of a sudden climate change and keep going as usual?

The 2016 SIE curve makes me feel uneasy.  Can't put a finger on it, but something just feels wrong.  The low maximum.  The headstart until June that seemingly was back to almost normal later.  And now a highly anomalous refreeze season.   I wonder what the start of a game-changing collapse of the artic ice sheet would look like. Increasingly erratic and anomalous development of the melt season would be a good bet. 

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #514 on: November 03, 2016, 07:58:38 PM »
Looking at my favorite extent forecast source - the regional amsr2 graphs - most seas reach full extent during the winter peak regardless of what went on during refreeze. These include the Kara, ESS, Hudson, Beaufort and Chukchi, the CAA and the CAB of course. Others reach the same typical extent during peak season, these include the Greenland Sea and Baffin. This means that extent records are mostly set on the Barents, Bering and especially Okhotsk, where the numbers seem somewhat random and therefore hard to predict. I wouldn't count on this season to produce a record low extent by a large margin. On the other hand, I would expect record low thickness/volume (and record high ice salinity) by a significant margin due to the lateness and weakness of the refreeze season. This may or may not show up on PIOMAS, but will almost certainly affect the 2017 melting season.

true as to extent but in extremis the volume could end up at something between 60 and 70% of what's normal which will have it's impact next year when it comes to the amount of energy it will take to melt the "reminder"

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #515 on: November 03, 2016, 10:17:04 PM »
NSIDC has gone from 7.08M km2 on 10-31 to 7.342M km2 on 11-02. Most of this appears to have been been in the Beaufort, though you can see little patches elsewhere. A little narrow stretch of shore in the Kara Sea is starting to get a foothold.

I don't know if this serves much of a purpose at the moment other than as a curiosity, but here it is anyway.  9-18 til now
« Last Edit: November 04, 2016, 12:30:28 AM by Tigertown »
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Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #516 on: November 03, 2016, 10:46:26 PM »
Meanwhile we are 773k km2 below previous record low (2012), 1.2mln km2 below 2007 and 1.57mln km2 below 2015 for Oct 2nd.

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jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #518 on: November 04, 2016, 02:20:12 AM »
 :-[
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Ice Shieldz

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #519 on: November 04, 2016, 05:57:10 AM »

Sleepy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #520 on: November 04, 2016, 06:33:38 AM »
I think the full version may be too large for the forums, but I've updated the Arctic mean surface air temperature plot from January through October --> https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/794187142251429888
~4MB is too much, but there's no need for that size if you wish to post it here. Attached is a quick&dirty recording from your tweet at ~200kB. Somewhat larger than that would be nice and readable.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #521 on: November 04, 2016, 06:39:38 AM »
Re:Ice Shieldz               I think the moisture is everywhere. I just went to check on http://floodlist.com/news  so as to update the Article links thread, and was just completely flabbergasted as there was just too much to post. Spain, Columbia, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Egypt, U.S.A., Argentina, Indonesia, Ukraine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Romania, Albania, Greece, Thailand, Mexico, and Australia. Most of these were major floods that multiple people died in. Also, two Typhoons hit the Philippines. Chaba caused flooding in many parts of Asia and Matthew in the U.S.. Over what time period, you ask? All of this happened within October, 2016. If I wanted to cover September, it would take another paragraph. I am lost for words as to how to conclude this post, and will let each do so for themselves.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Sleepy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #522 on: November 04, 2016, 11:20:15 AM »
Tuesday via nullschool.

Blizzard92

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #523 on: November 04, 2016, 04:04:17 PM »
Thanks Sleepy for posting!

I've reversed the temperature rankings on this heat map to be a bit more clear (http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures/...
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #524 on: November 04, 2016, 04:05:44 PM »
Here are some comparisons of Oct-Nov refreezing for 2013-2016. The first figure tracks open water in the Beaufort, Chukchi, ESS and Bering Strait region (as defined in a previous post) using UHH AMSR2, in units of millions of sq km.

Below that, four hycom 30-day runs for temperature, salinity, sea surface height and ice thickness are synched at 2x size. The prediction component goes out to November 11th and suggest considerable closing in of the ice pack: 666,000 sq km of open water still on that date (which translates to 44208 deepest blue pixels on the AMSR2 product, not shown).

If this event is associated in part with anomalously higher inflows through the Bering Strait, we might ask why the Pacific flows into the Arctic Ocean to begin with. According a comprehensive 2015 review by R Woodgate, the lead scientist monitoring Bering Strait influx (at the A3 mooring, data retrieved once a year), nobody knows. It’s often attributed to persistent low pressure over the Aleutians however.

Lower air pressure does in fact result in higher sea levels: an decrease in air pressure of 1 hPa, a slight decrease from the average air pressure of 1013 hPa, raises water level by 1 cm. Air pressure routinely varies between 950 and 1050 hPa during a year, so the expected variation in sea level amounts to +63 cm and -37 cm around mean sea level.

However sea level at a particular location is not only affected by the local air pressure above but also by other factors, so a simple correlation is rarely observed. For example, the sea surface on the Baltic can slope significantly both from north to south and from west to east. A dipole of deep low pressure passages over the Bothnian Bay, combined with high pressure over the southern Baltic, can lead sea level differences of up to 2 m across a moderate distance, according to an account at Sweden’s SMHI.

The data below do not support the notion of higher sea levels south of the Bering Strait driving anomalous volumes of warmer Pacific Water through the Strait over this time frame. However tides and winds from the south can also affect the sverdrups passing over the very shallow sill. Large variations in flux can occur within a few hours; the 21-year mean and std for the Bering Strait are provided in Serreze 2016.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2016, 04:49:41 PM by A-Team »

aslan

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #525 on: November 04, 2016, 09:39:40 PM »
For October, there is an interesting point. According to the reanalysis, IRs radiations to space where not exceptionally high. This is an argument for a strong feedback from water vapor and clouds which insulate the Arctic. As said, moisture is everywhere. Advection of warm air and water was probably a factor also. But datas show that Arctic is not radiating energy back to space, despite polar night and warmer than average temperature. Difference with 2007 is stark.

2016 upward long wave radiation at top of atmosphere (OLRs for short):



2012:



2007:



And the trend:



2016 is high, but it's nothing special given the record warmth and record low sea ice extent.

This is in agreement with weather stations. October was warm, but cloudy with nearly all the time a Nh = 8 (low cloud cover):

http://ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=21982&decoded=yes&ndays=50&ano=2016&mes=11&day=04&hora=18

For the monthly mean temperature of October, Ostrov Vrangela broke its old record (2007) by a wide margin of 2.3°C! The monthly Tm was even warmer than one daily record high...

Same here, but sea ice reached Ostrov Kotel'nyj in the end of the month, so the feedback was shut down and temperatures cooled:

http://ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=21432&ano=2016&mes=11&day=4&hora=18&min=0&ndays=50

This does not bode well. Arctic is probably not loosing a lot of energy currently. So perhaps the sluggish growth will not be compensated by a lower heat content, which is bad new for 2017. And with current order of magnitude of heat transport, Arctic is probably able to sustain itself trough the polar night without sea ice. We are one month and half before solstice, and sea ice is still not able to grow on the Pacific side. For the latest point, there is still a bit of time, but after a blue summer, it seems likely that clouds and water vapor will be able to insulate Arctic through the polar night.

Aikimox

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #526 on: November 04, 2016, 11:15:21 PM »
 - Global warming is a myth!!! Look it's not particularly warm at all! Very average for summer ;D
 - Yeah...Except it's November 4th! And those are in Celsius! :o

Ice Shieldz

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #527 on: November 05, 2016, 01:47:29 AM »
I'm sure i speak for many here in thanking Zack Labe (@Blizzard92) for all the work he's doing.

Recently on twitter, Zack offered a reality check for those who, like myself, put forth conclusions about how lack of Barents–Kara sea-ice are driving some of the changes we're currently seeing in the Arctic and related areas.

In a dialog with Anthony Maseillo, Zack draws attention to a number of studies suggesting the cold in Eurasia is more likely due to internal variability in the signal rather than Barents–Kara sea-ice connection.  This variability expresses itself as a high pressure over the Barents–Kara Sea and a downstream trough (full text: http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2820.epdf?author_access_token=oEjnyfdS1I_kzcuXv2NK0dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MXAtfUgKiCfZeyzIVnl24D1uNsd7q9wdYS58Zy6RLG0QHcjXMLCSU3f-_X3kNq-mwBLh0JvmiMyyoVk-OPvhnj)

Anthony thinks that expanding Hadley Cells and its effect on wave trains has something to do with it.  To which Zack replied that folks in his group are doing research related to that.  What a marvelously complex and interconnected climate system we live in, so much to learn, 8)

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #528 on: November 05, 2016, 04:56:26 AM »
The Arctic has had a few days in a row of century plus gains per JAXA. It sure makes the graphs look better.  NSIDC  has been showing strong gains in the Arctic, posting 7.551M for the 3rd of Nov.

Meanwhile, the Antarctic, where the SIE  had been making nominal drops everyday after the early September scare, all of a sudden took another nosedive today, loosing 230k+ in one day.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

epiphyte

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #529 on: November 05, 2016, 06:00:06 AM »
For October, there is an interesting point. According to the reanalysis, IRs radiations to space where not exceptionally high. This is an argument for a strong feedback from water vapor and clouds which insulate the Arctic. As said, moisture is everywhere.


Next stop; Venus :-(

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #530 on: November 05, 2016, 07:23:48 AM »
For October, there is an interesting point. According to the reanalysis, IRs radiations to space where not exceptionally high. This is an argument for a strong feedback from water vapor and clouds which insulate the Arctic. As said, moisture is everywhere. Advection of warm air and water was probably a factor also. But datas show that Arctic is not radiating energy back to space, despite polar night and warmer than average temperature. Difference with 2007 is stark.

2016 upward long wave radiation at top of atmosphere (OLRs for short):



2012:



2007:



And the trend:



2016 is high, but it's nothing special given the record warmth and record low sea ice extent.

This is in agreement with weather stations. October was warm, but cloudy with nearly all the time a Nh = 8 (low cloud cover):

http://ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=21982&decoded=yes&ndays=50&ano=2016&mes=11&day=04&hora=18

For the monthly mean temperature of October, Ostrov Vrangela broke its old record (2007) by a wide margin of 2.3°C! The monthly Tm was even warmer than one daily record high...

Same here, but sea ice reached Ostrov Kotel'nyj in the end of the month, so the feedback was shut down and temperatures cooled:

http://ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=21432&ano=2016&mes=11&day=4&hora=18&min=0&ndays=50

This does not bode well. Arctic is probably not loosing a lot of energy currently. So perhaps the sluggish growth will not be compensated by a lower heat content, which is bad new for 2017. And with current order of magnitude of heat transport, Arctic is probably able to sustain itself trough the polar night without sea ice. We are one month and half before solstice, and sea ice is still not able to grow on the Pacific side. For the latest point, there is still a bit of time, but after a blue summer, it seems likely that clouds and water vapor will be able to insulate Arctic through the polar night.
1. I see a lot of red in 2016 over Beaufort sea and Chukchi seas, which makes a lot of sense.
2. What if 2007 red blob was caused by exceptionally clear skies that year's October in that region? It seems the anomaly in the series, not saying that you cherrypicked but that you might have picked a cherry (unadvertedly).
3. Granted that the weather pattern has favored cloudy skies precisely in the open half of the Arctic, and that this in part explains the unexceptional lwr you show. But it does not seem to me that is going to catastrophically put us at the other side of the hill. Not this year. Just look at Hycom, which by the way, it is predicting the advance of refreeze waves really well.
Why choosing to forget that winter is coming. In December the extent will be back within range, although in the lowest limit with the chronic delay in the Atlantic side and this year Chukchi and later Bering (will it have much or any ice this year?).
More worrying to me is the spatial configuration of the second and multi- year ice, much of it can be rapidly lost if the Beaufort drift-transpolar drift-Fram export sets in motion as usually does in winter. And the sustained pulse of Pacific water thru the Bering, this will not help in a warm summer. We might see a wide opening of the Pacific side next year again.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #531 on: November 05, 2016, 07:59:31 AM »
Comparing SSTs with 2015, note the much higher temps in Bering sea, even when the Pacific in general is cooler this year. The Bering current is neatly revealed as it was a flowing river.
The Atlantic Ocean seems as warm, and the temperatures in Barentsz and Kara are even warmer!

oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #532 on: November 05, 2016, 08:41:16 AM »
A-Team thanks for you excellent and eye-opening post.
I found this link from R. Woodgate and colleagues which adds more details for those like me who want to explore more on Bering Strait flows.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/HLD/Bstrait/bstrait.html

For October, there is an interesting point. According to the reanalysis, IRs radiations to space where not exceptionally high. This is an argument for a strong feedback from water vapor and clouds which insulate the Arctic.
...
This does not bode well. Arctic is probably not loosing a lot of energy currently. So perhaps the sluggish growth will not be compensated by a lower heat content, which is bad new for 2017. And with current order of magnitude of heat transport, Arctic is probably able to sustain itself trough the polar night without sea ice. We are one month and half before solstice, and sea ice is still not able to grow on the Pacific side. For the latest point, there is still a bit of time, but after a blue summer, it seems likely that clouds and water vapor will be able to insulate Arctic through the polar night.
Your post is very interesting and worrying but I think it will be a very long time before the Arctic manages to survive the whole winter with no sea ice, even in the peripheral seas and even after a blue ocean event. Yes, after a blue ocean the freezing season will be much shorter, the ice thinner and probability of complete melt the year after that will greatly be increased. The clouds and water vapor serve as positive feedback to advanced summer melt by inhibiting winter growth. But lasting through the whole polar night with open water is much more difficult, and I think requires some other mechanism.

Sleepy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #533 on: November 05, 2016, 09:17:54 AM »
Persistent shift of the Arctic polar vortex towards the Eurasian continent in recent decades.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3136.html
Quote
The wintertime Arctic stratospheric polar vortex has weakened over the past three decades, and consequently cold surface air from high latitudes is now more likely to move into the middle latitudes1, 2, 3, 4, 5. However, it is not known if the location of the polar vortex has also experienced a persistent change in response to Arctic climate change and whether any changes in the vortex position have implications for the climate system. Here, through the analysis of various data sets and model simulations, we show that the Arctic polar vortex shifted persistently towards the Eurasian continent and away from North America in February over the past three decades. This shift is found to be closely related to the enhanced zonal wavenumber-1 waves in response to Arctic sea-ice loss, particularly over the Barents–Kara seas (BKS). Increased snow cover over the Eurasian continent may also have contributed to the shift. Our analysis reveals that the vortex shift induces cooling over some parts of the Eurasian continent and North America which partly offsets the tropospheric climate warming there in the past three decades. The potential vortex shift in response to persistent sea-ice loss in the future6, 7, and its associated climatic impact, deserve attention to better constrain future climate changes.
My bold.

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #534 on: November 05, 2016, 10:35:56 AM »
The 80N DMI temps are just absurd.  I'm at a loss for words.   :o

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2016.png
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Sleepy

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #535 on: November 05, 2016, 11:42:11 AM »
80°N temps can be even more absurd if the forecasts for Tuesday comes through.

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #536 on: November 05, 2016, 11:45:33 AM »
just a little heads up for everyone:


aslan

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #537 on: November 05, 2016, 11:47:07 AM »
1. I see a lot of red in 2016 over Beaufort sea and Chukchi seas, which makes a lot of sense.

Yep, it's logical that 2016 is still radiating to space a lot of energy. Even with clouds and water vapor temperatures are still really high. For the world, OLRs should not increase, remaining around 240 W/m² but locally and at times this will probably be not the case.

Quote
2. What if 2007 red blob was caused by exceptionally clear skies that year's October in that region? It seems the anomaly in the series, not saying that you cherrypicked but that you might have picked a cherry (unadvertedly).

Yep agree, 2007 was really an outlier. But the point is that 2016 is not loosing as much energy as we could expected given such low sea ice and such high temperatures. This is why I compared 2016 and 2007. Before this year, 2007 was the warmest October and lowest sea ice extent. Lacking precedent can make such comparison a bit artificial (perhaps also 2007 is not representative). Nevertheless, this shows that 2016 is not loosing a lot of energy, which is worrying.

Quote
3. Granted that the weather pattern has favored cloudy skies precisely in the open half of the Arctic, and that this in part explains the unexceptional lwr you show. But it does not seem to me that is going to catastrophically put us at the other side of the hill. Not this year. Just look at Hycom, which by the way, it is predicting the advance of refreeze waves really well.
Why choosing to forget that winter is coming. In December the extent will be back within range, although in the lowest limit with the chronic delay in the Atlantic side and this year Chukchi and later Bering (will it have much or any ice this year?).
More worrying to me is the spatial configuration of the second and multi- year ice, much of it can be rapidly lost if the Beaufort drift-transpolar drift-Fram export sets in motion as usually does in winter. And the sustained pulse of Pacific water thru the Bering, this will not help in a warm summer. We might see a wide opening of the Pacific side next year again.

Yep agree, I don't think this year will put us at the other side of the hill, it will still take time (and CO2...) for this. For the clouds, yes the pattern was favorable, but water vapor reached an extreme peak in October 2016 in the Arctic and I don't see this being only due to advection.

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #538 on: November 05, 2016, 12:22:57 PM »
The CFS-v2 ensemble prediction of sea ice concentration for March 2017. The model's lack of skill in correctly predicting sea ice in summer is well known but the skill of the model improves at lower latitudes (or at least the members agree better). So it is interesting to see that almost no ice is predicted to form in the Bering sea, but a more normal Barents sea ice cover is predicted compared to 2016. SSTs are also predicted to be colder than last year's north of Norway
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfsv2fcst/htmls/glbSSTe3Sea.html
Another low maximum but should not smash the records?
« Last Edit: November 05, 2016, 12:33:49 PM by seaicesailor »

dnem

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #539 on: November 05, 2016, 04:52:15 PM »
The 80N DMI temps are just absurd.  I'm at a loss for words.   :o

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2016.png

Here's a little picture I made to fill in for lost words.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #540 on: November 05, 2016, 07:00:46 PM »
Yep agree, I don't think this year will put us at the other side of the hill, it will still take time (and CO2...) for this. For the clouds, yes the pattern was favorable, but water vapor reached an extreme peak in October 2016 in the Arctic and I don't see this being only due to advection.
CO2  is already there - it's just a matter of time.

What's different between now and the late Pliocene, is how fast the CO2 has appeared.  In the Pliocene, nature did the metaphorical equivalent of lifting a basket of eggs, and putting it on the top shelf of the pantry.  In the Anthropocene, humanity has taken a similar basket of eggs, and just chucked it up on to the shelf, with expected fallout.

The entire system is reacting to the very abrupt input of energy.  As we only see it in terms of human lifetimes, it doesn't seem abrupt - 150 years or so for most of the change - but it is.  The weather/temperature chaos in the Arctic is emblematic of this, as the system can't equilibrate fast enough to distribute the additional heat.  We're talking hundreds of zettajoules (10^21 joules) of additional heat here - monstrous amounts of energy - all trying to find places to go. 

It may be we're seeing the climatic equivalent of a dam bursting (failure of the Hadley, Ferrel and Arctic cells).  This now translates into 20C+ temperature anomalies across the entire Arctic.  We were excited *last* year looking at those temperatures hitting about half of the basin at a time in waves.  Now its the *entire* basin, and persistent.

(Reference to give you the source of my heat uptake numbers)
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/grantham-institute/public/publications/briefing-papers/Ocean-heat-uptake---Grantham-BP-15.pdf
« Last Edit: November 05, 2016, 07:09:08 PM by jdallen »
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Okono

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #541 on: November 05, 2016, 07:24:49 PM »
It may be we're seeing the climatic equivalent of a dam bursting (failure of the Hadley, Ferrel and Arctic cells).

We're seeing enough highly anomalous yet highly persistent behavior to flag awareness of violent phase shifts, but that's about as dramatic as it could get.

So, here's your raised eyebrow. :D  I had heard often of the expansion of the Hadley cells being a primary risk from global warming, but I'm less familiar with prognosticated risk of complete circulatory failures(beyond the hypothesized THC failure).

Was this seriously perceived as possible, is this seriously possible, and has anyone seriously modeled plausible forcings for such collapse or the impact globally as well as for the Arctic, fully aware that it's so far out of ordinary behavior that we could have at best a crude guess, and "did we see it coming" would be the least of our worries?  Have you some studies at the ready for the studious amongst us?  ;D
« Last Edit: November 05, 2016, 08:07:13 PM by Okono »

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #542 on: November 05, 2016, 09:12:39 PM »
Thank you all for the eye-popping charts and updates. I have quite a deficit of Sea ice knowledge and understanding relative to all of you, but I really haven't seen any recent evidence to support an earth that doesn't become Venus 2.0 within this century. We've got all the energy we need and more to make it happen. That flood website is astounding. Guy Mcpherson looks more like a genius every day. If only this was some other planet that we didn't also happen to rely on for survival...  :-\ Question is, how much time do we have? Do we measure in years, months or days? Who knows at this point. All we can do is keep watching and see what the arctic has in store for us next.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #543 on: November 05, 2016, 09:17:00 PM »
I don't really know why we had the phase change, but if you look at the DMI Daily Mean Temperatures North of 80 degrees for 2015 you can almost pick out the exact date at the end of the year near the Winter Solstice when it happened.  I guess that is when the humidity and the the ocean climate finally pushed far enough North to change the strange attractor and cause a (mathematical) catastrophe.

I've been saying for a long time that the real greenhouse gas is H2O, and that the switch would come in the form of a long delayed freeze-up in Fall.  Anyone who has experienced night in the desert and night on the coast ought to know that.

Ice Shieldz

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #544 on: November 05, 2016, 09:28:43 PM »
Persistent shift of the Arctic polar vortex towards the Eurasian continent in recent decades.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3136.html
Quote
The wintertime Arctic stratospheric polar vortex has weakened over the past three decades, and consequently cold surface air from high latitudes is now more likely to move into the middle latitudes1, 2, 3, 4, 5. However, it is not known if the location of the polar vortex has also experienced a persistent change in response to Arctic climate change and whether any changes in the vortex position have implications for the climate system. Here, through the analysis of various data sets and model simulations, we show that the Arctic polar vortex shifted persistently towards the Eurasian continent and away from North America in February over the past three decades. This shift is found to be closely related to the enhanced zonal wavenumber-1 waves in response to Arctic sea-ice loss, particularly over the Barents–Kara seas (BKS). Increased snow cover over the Eurasian continent may also have contributed to the shift. Our analysis reveals that the vortex shift induces cooling over some parts of the Eurasian continent and North America which partly offsets the tropospheric climate warming there in the past three decades. The potential vortex shift in response to persistent sea-ice loss in the future6, 7, and its associated climatic impact, deserve attention to better constrain future climate changes.
My bold.
The point Zack was making is that recent studies, in part, refute this claim.  These studies are not getting as much media attention.  Perhaps because they don't show how the effects of climate change account for what we're currently seeing in simple or more seemingly obvious terms, like loss of Barents–Kara sea ice.
 
http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2820.epdf?author_access_token=oEjnyfdS1I_kzcuXv2NK0dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MXAtfUgKiCfZeyzIVnl24D1uNsd7q9wdYS58Zy6RLG0QHcjXMLCSU3f-_X3kNq-mwBLh0JvmiMyyoVk-OPvhnj
Quote
. . . we find no evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss having impacted Eurasian surface temperature. In our atmosphere–ocean simulations, we find just one simulation with Eurasian cooling of the observed magnitude but Arctic sea-ice loss was not involved, either directly or indirectly. Rather, in this simulation the cooling is due to a persistent circulation pattern combining high pressure over the Barents–Kara Sea and a downstream trough. We conclude that the observed cooling over central Eurasia was probably due to a sea-ice-independent internally generated circulation pattern ensconced over, and nearby, the Barents–Kara Sea since the 1980s.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2016, 09:36:41 PM by Ice Shieldz »

seaicesailor

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #545 on: November 05, 2016, 09:46:28 PM »
...
And the trend:


...
Aslan, I am really intrigued by this nice time series. A question: why do you include only the sector of longitudes E120° to 270° ( 90° West I  guess).
Is it possible to get similar plots of specific and/or relative humidity at tropopause pressure altitude of 200 hPa. Just to see if indeed we can see the expected humidity increase (with a small drop of relative humidity, see link below) given the temperature plot that Zack Labe was showing.
http://m.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WaterVapor/water_vapor3.php

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #546 on: November 05, 2016, 10:28:26 PM »
<snippage>
I've been saying for a long time that the real greenhouse gas is H2O, and that the switch would come in the form of a long delayed freeze-up in Fall.  Anyone who has experienced night in the desert and night on the coast ought to know that.
I generally concur - CO2's the match and tinder, H2O the accelerant and primary fuel.  Your phase shift may be tied to some crucial absolute humidity saturation level; with global temperatures generally up about a degree and a half, that's close to a 10% overall potential increase in atmospheric carrying capacity for H2O.  As the heat is not universally distributed, the increase is disproportionately at high latitudes.

I think we need to keep this in mind - those high arctic temperatures also mean 200-500% increase in absolute moisture carrying capacity.  E.g. going from ~248K to ~262K as DMI 80N suggests, our theoretical max H2O goes from 0.5 grams/liter of atmosphere to about 1.75 - a 250% increase.

Now, we probably aren't consistently pegging humidity at 100%, but even considering that, we have both more non-sensible heat (from H2O phase changes) *and* increased radiative forcing. 

(I haven't been able to find references which show how H2O radiative forcing changes with increases in humidity - anyone have any hints? I'd like to at least ballpark how much additional heat is being trapped).

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Okono

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #547 on: November 05, 2016, 10:45:23 PM »
Which adds more clouds and heat, preventing refreeze or a decrease of OLR, temperature differential shrinks leading to more meridional heat and moisture transport, which adds more clouds and heat, preventing refreeze or a decrease of OLR,

Okay, I'm starting to get why this is concerning.  I still don't see how there's a link to the primary atmospheric circulation cells of the Earth breaking down.

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #548 on: November 05, 2016, 10:55:40 PM »
  I still don't see how there's a link to the primary atmospheric circulation cells of the Earth breaking down.

I have to wonder what happens when a wandering polar jet lobe impacts a northerly loop of the sub tropical Jet?

Does that really open the door to rapid flooding of tropical air north whilst the Polar airs give extreme cold for a few days before 'acclimatising' ,via a couple of days of Equatorial heating, to its new location?

The bigger impact would come from that rapidly migrating tropical air over regions not normally so impacted? And all that moisture laden air suddenly cooling???

So I think the 'system' fuses as the highly meridonal Polar jet amplification frequently 'short out' the Sub Tropical Jet?
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #549 on: November 05, 2016, 11:19:20 PM »
A couple people made claims earlier this year that all the main jet streams connected for a time and allowed pole to pole transport of warm moist air from equatorial regions. There was quite a bit of controversy and confusion over it. Some "authorities" on the matter tried to say it happened all the time. I could not find any verification that it had done so other than with some lower altitude winds, which are not the same.

P.S. Not that the moisture and heat necessarily needed the jet stream to get there.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography has done a lot of studies on clouds and moisture migrating to the Arctic, or actually both poles.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/clouds-are-moving-higher-subtropical-dry-zones-expanding-according-satellite-analysis
« Last Edit: November 05, 2016, 11:26:23 PM by Tigertown »
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