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Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1200 on: December 05, 2016, 12:21:28 PM »
I'm more interested in the heat over on the U.S. side as any 'cold plunges' , down the East coast, will drop off the U.S. and into that water. The temp Grad. between that air and the Ocean sets up Cyclones ( cyclogenisis) and if we keep seeing high pressure settling over the UK then all those storms head north into Barrentsz/Kara.

Not good?
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1201 on: December 05, 2016, 02:08:40 PM »
Quote
maybe the 'shallow' Arctic is in historically poor condition for ice formation and growth over the Winter? While the 'deep' Arctic might be expected to be less affected?
Nice analysis of that aspect. Snow-on-ice is another factor adversely affecting bottom growth as it acts as an insulating blanket between very cold air and not-as-cold ice. From the heat equation perspective, it would be treated as an intervening slab of poor conductor (assuming it is dry and not soaked by sea water waves).

It seems that U Bremen has recently figured out how to extract snow depth from SMOS. The product is labelled version 0.1 and is part of a very ambitious and most welcome multi-source data presentation scheme, http://tinyurl.com/j4rp3ru

The depth of snow is measured in 10 color bins up to >0.5 m after which it is shown a white. The map is available as shown below, as a geotiff with no lat,lon lines or color bar, or as HDF gridded data. It doubles as an extent map since snow-on-water would not make sense (but see wayne's first hand comments about snow-on-slush at the blog site).

Here is the 65 day animation of snow depth for Oct 1st to Dec 4th, the file is a bit large but amazingly it loaded. Bremen has done a reanalysis of past years snow depth as well from which someone ambitious here might recast 2016 in terms of depth anomaly.

U Bremen is serving SMOS snow-on-ice back to 2002! The slide show below presents Dec 2nd for those years; 2011 is missing for some reason. If the atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean has more water vapor in fall (as part of Arctic amplification), then we might see a trend towards deeper snow earlier. This would precondition the following melt season to more rapid loss of ice, both from retention of ocean water heat and melt ponds/albedo loss as that snow melts in the solar season.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2016, 02:54:15 PM by A-Team »

crandles

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1202 on: December 05, 2016, 03:12:19 PM »
This would precondition the following melt season to more rapid loss of ice, both from retention of ocean water heat and melt ponds/albedo loss as that snow melts in the solar season.

Isn't it that the ice would be thinner due to more insulation but high albedo from dry snow would last longer as melt water has more opportunity to trickle downwards and leave the top snow dry?

Shared Humanity

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1203 on: December 05, 2016, 03:20:02 PM »
I believe that studies of albedo in Greenland showed that surface melt of the snow drastically reduced albedo as the shape of the snow crystals changed.

A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1204 on: December 05, 2016, 05:54:31 PM »
Quote
BornFromTheVoid Posts: 905  #1183 "been busy as I've started a PhD working on Arctic permafrost cliffs
Best wishes for your program and thx for all the great posts! Please keep us up to date on permafrost as your time permits.
Quote
snow on ice
Right. Dry snow is both a fabulous insulator during the winter months -- it's all that entrapped air -- and reflector of sunlight during the insolation season.

The worst case scenario is probably a big rain-on-snow event during an early sunny spring. That doubles down on the heat taken up by the ice. As global warming and mid-latitude atmospheric  intrusions progress, that particular swan seems no longer black but just gray.

Just out from the U Bremen group:

Reflective properties of white sea ice and snow
A Malinka E Zeg G Heygster L Istomina
The Cryosphere 10(6):2541-2557 · November 2016
DOI: 10.5194/tc-10-2541-2016 free full text

White ice (ice with a highly scattering granular layer on top of its surface) and snow-covered ice occupy a large part of the sea ice area in the Arctic, the former in summer, the latter in the cold period. The inherent optical properties (IOPs) and the reflectance of these types of ice are considered from the point of view of the light scattering and radiative transfer theories. The IOPs – the extinction and absorption coefficients and the scattering phase function – are derived with the assumption that both the snow cover and the scattering layer of white ice are random mixtures of air and ice with the characteristic grain size significantly larger than the wavelength of incident light. Simple analytical formulas are put forward to calculate the bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF), albedo at direct incidence (the directional–hemispherical reflectance), and albedo at diffuse incidence (the bihemispherical reflectance). The optical model developed is verified with the data of the in situ measurements made during the R/V Polarstern expedition ARK-XXVII/3 in 2012.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 02:20:13 AM by A-Team »

magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1205 on: December 05, 2016, 06:53:28 PM »
stall / setback seemingly ahead


Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1206 on: December 05, 2016, 07:04:04 PM »
Agree, but think it may be more of a slow down this time, and be due to SST's. Despite SST's there are some places growth can creep along, but I don't see any places for big spurts of growth.
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magnamentis

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1207 on: December 05, 2016, 08:03:11 PM »
Agree, but think it may be more of a slow down this time, and be due to SST's. Despite SST's there are some places growth can creep along, but I don't see any places for big spurts of growth.

stall, slowdown, think we meen the same and since i'm not a native EN speaker i assume that slowdown it is, thanks, will try to keep the word in top drawer but forgive should i fall back into old patterns LOL

enjoy furhter

Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1208 on: December 05, 2016, 08:35:45 PM »
I wonder if High Arctic temperatures will average the same for the next 150 days as they did the first 100 days of 2016.

I can probably not fathom (and certainly not calculate) the lack of heat loss this year's Arctic Ocean has experienced.   Or is surface heat loss greater than normal, keeping the near-surface temperature relatively hot?

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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1209 on: December 05, 2016, 08:36:45 PM »
magnamentis; I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just saying that the growth probably won't stop completely, but at the same time I don't see any large spaces that are not held back by SST's. I would expect nominal gains for a while, instead of century and double century gains. Hudson Bay is probably the place to watch. Maybe the Laptev and not sure about the Chukchi.
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oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1210 on: December 05, 2016, 09:07:12 PM »
magnamentis; I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just saying that the growth probably won't stop completely, but at the same time I don't see any large spaces that are not held back by SST's. I would expect nominal gains for a while, instead of century and double century gains. Hudson Bay is probably the place to watch. Maybe the Laptev and not sure about the Chukchi.
Hudson indeed. It should be making large gains at this time of year.

charles_oil

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1211 on: December 05, 2016, 10:00:49 PM »
From a link by Doomintheuk back in April (sorry haven't mastered the link):
http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/e0010736

##
Freeze-up Patterns and Timing
The large water areas involved, and the large variation in latitude, mean that the timing of freezeup can vary considerably in this area. The freeze-up process generally follows this pattern:

(first two weeks of October) Northern Foxe Basin and the Churchill River begin forming new ice;
(last two weeks of October) Western Hudson Strait and northwestern Hudson Bay begin forming new ice;
(first two weeks of November) James Bay begins forming new ice;
(first two weeks of November) Foxe Basin and Foxe Channel are completely ice covered;
(last two weeks of November) Hudson Strait is completely ice covered;
(first two weeks of December) James Bay is completely ice covered; and
(mid-December) Hudson Bay completely ice covered.

The resultant winter ice cover in this region is composed of many different thicknesses of ice that are all very rough. Continual ice motion allows rafting, ridging, and hummocking to take place throughout the winter.
##
Above though is from rather dated - and archived

I think the current info is at:
http://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/Icebreaking/Ice-Navigation-Canadian-Waters/Ice-Climatology-and-Environmental-Conditions#3.2.4

Which includes a good graphic 1981-2010

Guess we may be a bit behind this year !!!

charles_oil

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1212 on: December 05, 2016, 10:10:16 PM »
And for comparison NSIDC from the 4th dec 2016... it strikes we are about a fortnight behind "normal" as the graph (above) showed similar coverage by 19th Nov.

idunno

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1213 on: December 05, 2016, 10:41:58 PM »
Apologies all, that I haven't recently had the time to contribute, or even follow recent discussions...

My tuppenceworth (with apologies to those who have heard this stuck record a couple of years previously on the ASIB...)

The much-touted annual minimum is insignificant. It is followed by a period of 6 months of 0% albedo feedback.

The autumn/fall is the most critical period. Can the cold atmosphere sufficiently cool the liquid seawater so that it EITHER floats, as ice, and then cools further, OR sinks, as colder denser still liquid seawater? A solid ice surface can quickly drop to -30C, whereas liquid seawater is around -1.8C or above, by definition.

If the vagaries of ocean currents deliver hotter seawater to the Arctic surface in sufficient quantities that the atmosphere cannot quickly grab it, and retain it at surface by freezing it, it will sink, and be replenished by further supplies of anthropogenically warmed seawater. A conveyor belt of heat; which will warm the local atmosphere still further.

I'd be interested to know if anybody here can calculate whether any area of the earth has ever, since records began, been more anomalously warm than the Arctic over the last 3 months of 2016? Sahara at 70C? Europe in Summer at 50C?

My opinion is that the annual solar cycle of 2016, or any other year, which raise the ambient Arctic SAT from -30C in midwinter to 0C in midsummer pale into insignificance beside the accumulated energy absorbed by the planet over the previous 4 billennia, (with a huge increase in the energy retained due to CO2 forcing over the last few decades,) which has raised the global average temp from around -265C (absolute zero + geothermal) to around +12C. That heat is stored primarily in the oceans. The new modern anthropogenic component of it will have greatest effect if, due to a related disruption in the jetstream, Atlantic heat is hurried North during the autumn/fall. That could, in theory, produce a situation in which large areas of the Arctic surface do not refreeze as usual, but remain 30C above normal. In theory, and also, this year, in practice...


bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1214 on: December 05, 2016, 11:32:03 PM »
Younger Dryas was driven in major part by massive outbreaks of melt from Canadian ice sheets.  No ice sheets, no Dryas, I think.
Greenland is an ice sheet of more than sufficient volume to equal or surpass the impacts of the Younger Dryas. The rate of melt is more important than the total melt (though that is also significant). If you have 10M KM3 of ice that melts in 100 yrs the practical impact on the ocean will be greater than 10M KM3 of ice that melts over 1K yrs, or even 100M KM3. This seems to be what people are forgetting and I continue to be extremely alarmed that we are entering such an event as we speak.

So much heat over the Pole, but so much cold elsewhere -- the net impact this autumn has been a very substantial positive anomaly to NHEM snowcover. Standing Rock protesters are in for some very severe winter...



Should also note that the areas in red over Canada ^ are still more than sufficient for snow, in fact, the heat being deposited from Hudson Bay is probably a major cause of the + anomalies that have begun persisting on a seasonal basis in that region as well.




6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1215 on: December 06, 2016, 12:40:34 AM »
If you have 10M KM3 of ice that melts in 100 yrs the practical impact on the ocean will be greater than 10M KM3 of ice that melts over 1K yrs, or even 100M KM3. This seems to be what people are forgetting and I continue to be extremely alarmed that we are entering such an event as we speak.
However, the current rate of Greenland ice sheet melting (say 500 km^3?) is > 2 orders of magnitude less than 10M km^3 per 100y.

bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1216 on: December 06, 2016, 12:42:38 AM »
If you have 10M KM3 of ice that melts in 100 yrs the practical impact on the ocean will be greater than 10M KM3 of ice that melts over 1K yrs, or even 100M KM3. This seems to be what people are forgetting and I continue to be extremely alarmed that we are entering such an event as we speak.
However, the current rate of Greenland melt (say 375 km^3?) is > 2 orders of magnitude less than 10M km^3 per 100y.
They were arbitrary figures, my point is that an accelerated melt of an ice sheet the size of Greenland could easily surpass the impact of an event like the Younger Dryas if the speed of melting is vastly increased. Given the unprecedented rate of increase in global GHGs, this is hardly difficult to imagine, and in fact, already seems to be occurring.

It should also be noted that the fact that current melting remains "relatively" minimal relative to total ice sheet volume is a sign that it can continue increasing for many decades to come. We only crossed the threshold for volume loss recently, so the state change has only just begun. Though I imagine the impacts of ++runoff from ++snowfall have also been increasing in recent years, amplifying the ice sheet's runoff.

Cate

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1217 on: December 06, 2016, 01:14:25 AM »
Hudson Bay

https://www.ec.gc.ca/glaces-ice/?lang=En&n=B6C654BB-1
Scroll down for "departure from normal concentration." The chart is updated weekly and you can toggle back to previous weeks, to compare. The departure from normal appears to have increased markedly from Nov 21 to Nov 28?

http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/Ice_Can/ANIM-CMMBCTCA.gif
Coverage chart. For the purposes of this chart at least, ice along the western shore of the bay actually seems to disappear from Nov 28 to Dec 4?


jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1218 on: December 06, 2016, 01:56:32 AM »
Quote
BornFromTheVoid Posts: 905  #1183 "been busy as I've started a PhD working on Arctic permafrost cliffs
Best wishes for your program and thx for all the great posts! Please keep us up to date on permafrost as your time permits.
Quote
snow on ice
Right. Dry snow is both a fabulous insulator during the winter months and reflector of sunlight during the insolation season.


Interesting to me is the fact that we have a rapid increase in snow cover anomalies in the early fall.  If we expect significant loss of subsurface permafrost then a large dry snowcover early in the season would significantly slow down (prevent???) refreeze of this thawed layer, leading to rapid next year thaw with warmer water intrusion into the thaw layer.

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bbr2314

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1219 on: December 06, 2016, 01:58:25 AM »
Quote
BornFromTheVoid Posts: 905  #1183 "been busy as I've started a PhD working on Arctic permafrost cliffs
Best wishes for your program and thx for all the great posts! Please keep us up to date on permafrost as your time permits.
Quote
snow on ice
Right. Dry snow is both a fabulous insulator during the winter months and reflector of sunlight during the insolation season.


Interesting to me is the fact that we have a rapid increase in snow cover anomalies in the early fall.  If we expect significant loss of subsurface permafrost then a large dry snowcover early in the season would significantly slow down (prevent???) refreeze of this thawed layer, leading to rapid next year thaw with warmer water intrusion into the thaw layer.
Should be noted that total surface mass balance for Greenland this fall has also been very much above normal. Unprecedented possibly?


Shared Humanity

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1220 on: December 06, 2016, 02:08:44 AM »
Can we please stay on topic? I come here daily, rarely comment, but I would like to follow the freezing season here, not other topics.

oren

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1221 on: December 06, 2016, 04:04:31 AM »
Hudson Bay

https://www.ec.gc.ca/glaces-ice/?lang=En&n=B6C654BB-1
Scroll down for "departure from normal concentration." The chart is updated weekly and you can toggle back to previous weeks, to compare. The departure from normal appears to have increased markedly from Nov 21 to Nov 28?

http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/Ice_Can/ANIM-CMMBCTCA.gif
Coverage chart. For the purposes of this chart at least, ice along the western shore of the bay actually seems to disappear from Nov 28 to Dec 4?
Thank you Cate, good resources which show quite well the delay and stall in Hudson this year.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1222 on: December 06, 2016, 04:51:11 AM »
stall / setback seemingly ahead

18,335 km2 gain per JAXA for Dec.5...

You called it.

Have a look/see at NSIDC numbers for Arctic SIE the last few days(2nd, 3rd, and 4th +5th)

2016,    12,  02,     10.380,     
2016,    12,  03,     10.362,     
2016,    12,  04,     10.362,
2016,     12,  05,     10.426,   [edit]
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 02:58:47 PM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1223 on: December 06, 2016, 05:43:24 AM »
Job Opening: Jet Stream Repairman
Experience Helpful.

"More profound changes are in store as the Arctic continues to warm, says Francis, a research professor at Rutgers University."
Later in article,
"Francis: Yes, it's hard to get your head around it. I'm sure there will be more surprises coming our way. This year was not unexpected. It was a continuation in the losses of the ice and the warming in the Arctic. I would say it's certainly a bigger, stronger, and more alarming event than probably anybody was expecting to see this year. As we look into the future, are these kinds of spikes in temperature and sea ice loss going to continue? Are we going to perhaps see the sea ice disappear even faster than we expect? I hate to think it, but it's probably likely. Pretty much all of the changes that we expect to see happen in the climate system have been occurring more rapidly than we expected."

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/unusually_warm_arctic_climate_turmoil_jennifer_francis/3060/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29

No letup just yet. Arctic air dispersed everywhere.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 06:04:57 AM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

logicmanPatrick

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1224 on: December 06, 2016, 06:33:47 AM »
@magnamentis and tigertown.
re: stall - both senses of the word apply iin the Arctic ice context.

1 - stall (automotive) - to stop completely as in stalling an engine.

2 - stall (aviation and dynamics) - to reduce a system factor to such an extent that stability is lost, temporarily or permanently.

When a plane stalls you can get an interchange of potential and kinetic energy leading to a phugoid oscillation in flight level, as in the image below from the movie 'Battle of Britain'.

If you filter out the annual cycle of ice gain and loss you will see a phugoid oscillation in current Arctic sea ice extent as graphed by NSIDC.
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

Gray-Wolf

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1225 on: December 06, 2016, 11:44:37 AM »
Hi LogicmanPatric!

Phugoid oscillation.

I really wish you had been around on the board over the past few years! I really caught on with your old blog posts ( broken Bridges etc) and that type of 'Logic' might have helped me sort out whether the 'Crackopalypse' events , in late winter, helped preserve the ice by limiting melt pond formation or were just another preconditioning for melt by reducing floe size?

I've always thought they were a bad thing but it took until last winter for me to realise just how bad it was for the ice..... i'm sure you'd have been of great help in speeding up that realisation in me!

Anyhow I'm very pleased that whatever kept you from us has abated and you can now help us all out here ( esp. now Neven's having a throttle back?). Welcome!
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6roucho

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1226 on: December 06, 2016, 12:30:39 PM »
Phugoid oscillation is a *great* analogy. A divergent phugoid is an unstable oscillation, like a double pendulum. It's arguably general to systems on the edge of chaos, such as markets that are about to crash. Perhaps it always occurs, markets (and ice) lacking the dynamic of a systematic change of direction?

meddoc

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1227 on: December 06, 2016, 01:17:11 PM »
Does someone know the link to the

NSIDC global sea ice area graph?

Thanx

charles_oil

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1228 on: December 06, 2016, 01:27:02 PM »
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

The excellent "chartic" graph for arctic / Antarctic is on the right, also a new one for Greenland melt (in season).

The report dated 2 nov will change quite soon (within hours) I expect and includes an analysis of the previous month.  Historical versions can be found in the drop down to the right

meddoc

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1229 on: December 06, 2016, 01:38:04 PM »
Not that one... I'm not a fggin newbie.

THIS:


Hans

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1230 on: December 06, 2016, 01:48:25 PM »
Ah, that one (was on the Dutch TV last week in DWDD)
Look at the site of Wipneus: https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-ice-extent-area/grf and try to find nsidc_global_extent_byyear_b.png
 :)

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Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1232 on: December 06, 2016, 02:45:12 PM »
There was some discussion about how likely it would be that most of the thickest MYI would get exported out the Fram this winter.  As a snapshot, the December 4 and 5 Sentinel images from DMI show about 35 km of eastward movement near the northern tip of Greenland (Morris Jesup) and abut 30 km of eastern movement ~100 km north of there.  At Nord (NE corner of Greenland), floes moved about 10 km southward between Dec. 4 and 5.  (This is export!)

From other maps, I understand the thickest MYI is North and West of where these images are taken [edit: actually North and slightly East].  And, of course, export will depend on what the prevailing winds & currents will be.

Meanwhile, Lincoln Sea ice is more or less drifting about and has not been exported into Nares Strait this past week, although ice in the Strait has generally moved southward.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 04:49:00 PM by Tor Bejnar »
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Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1233 on: December 06, 2016, 03:51:52 PM »
Everything in the general area including the MYI started moving in the direction of the Fram on Dec. 3rd and has continued until now. The Question is: How long will it keep moving that way?
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A-Team

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1234 on: December 06, 2016, 04:03:05 PM »
Quote
At Nord (NE corner of Greenland), floes moved about 10 km southward between Dec. 4 and 5.  (This is export!)
So, roughly speaking, if the ice is 0.003 km thick, a block 10 km long by 307 km wide is ~9 km3 per day that has irrevocably crossed the flux gate. Piomas is showing 9515 km3 so this would be ~0.1% per day.

Hycom thickness shows this has been going on for quite a while (though not so much in November, see wip-based animation at bottom) and will continue for quite a while (Dec 01-12 shown).



Zack has been doing some GREAT graphics up at his twitter site, just a wee bit large for the 700 pxl maximum here. November 2016 thickness and anomaly shown; note how thickest ice in Piomas is not along the CAA coast as expected and as in Hycom; monthly averaging may distort the picture when temporary leads open offshore. https://twitter.com/ZLabe/media
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 05:01:26 PM by A-Team »

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1235 on: December 06, 2016, 04:29:21 PM »
HYCOM drift here, but made the GIF myself because their's is too fast to discern.
Note that there will be a couple days that flow opposite, but even then the push down the Fram continues.          Click image to engage action
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1236 on: December 06, 2016, 05:57:41 PM »
Reading in Fram Strait spring ice export and September Arctic sea ice (2015), M. H. Halvorsen, et.al. write
Quote
Here ice drift is in the south-southwesterly direction, and a mean southward speed of 16cms−1 has been reported based on moorings at 5W in the period 1997–2000 (Widell et al., 2003). Figure 1 shows that the temporal 25 mean speed is quite constant across the strait eastward of 5W, and that the speed decreases westward towards the Greenland coast. Velocities are clearly strongest during winter, with mean speeds above 20 cms−1 decreasing to less than 10 cms−1 during summer in the outer part (Fig. 1)
Figure 1 reproduced below.
16cm/s = 13.8 km/day
10 cm/s = 8.6 km/day
20 cm/s = 17.3 km/day

Although the 10 km/day (Dec. 4-5) I measured is on the low side of historical winter average export, this measurement was taken 3º north of where the study occurred, and on the slower, west side of the export zone.
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1237 on: December 06, 2016, 08:59:28 PM »
Reading in Fram Strait spring ice export and September Arctic sea ice (2015), M. H. Halvorsen, et.al. write
Quote
Here ice drift is in the south-southwesterly direction, and a mean southward speed of 16cms−1 has been reported based on moorings at 5W in the period 1997–2000 (Widell et al., 2003). Figure 1 shows that the temporal 25 mean speed is quite constant across the strait eastward of 5W, and that the speed decreases westward towards the Greenland coast. Velocities are clearly strongest during winter, with mean speeds above 20 cms−1 decreasing to less than 10 cms−1 during summer in the outer part (Fig. 1)
Figure 1 reproduced below.
16cm/s = 13.8 km/day
10 cm/s = 8.6 km/day
20 cm/s = 17.3 km/day

Although the 10 km/day (Dec. 4-5) I measured is on the low side of historical winter average export, this measurement was taken 3º north of where the study occurred, and on the slower, west side of the export zone.
In line with "dinner napkin" calc's I've been doing regarding Fram export.  Nice to see I was in the ball park.

I think its important for us to keep in mind - we no longer have just the Fram as our ice "killing ground".  There's an nearly 1500KM from from Greenland all the way to FJL which ice is actively being ground up due to all of the warm North Atlantic inflow.

Given the right push from the wind, we might actually be having 2 or more times the typical Fram flow being destroyed.
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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1238 on: December 06, 2016, 09:17:39 PM »
Those enhanced PIOMAS images by A-Team give the impression that the high thickness region is a convergence zone where is piled up by winds pushing it on its way out of the Fram strait. Typically we see the thickest ice piling up against Greenland and the Canadian archipelago and an arm between the Siberian seas and the Beaufort sea where converging winds thicken the ice. Now, we see a thick arm on the path to the Fram strait.

This sure looks like a developing disaster for sea ice to me. The weather has been perfect for maximizing loss through the Fram and minimizing ice growth in the Arctic ocean.

Tigertown

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1239 on: December 06, 2016, 09:33:19 PM »
I haven't been watching as long as many of you here, but my guess would be that the main problem is lack of a good hard freeze. Would not ice dams build up in most of these areas typically this time of year, not to mention the "fast" ice, all of which would either impede or slowdown export?

Edit: Upon review of the last few Decembers, I see that it is a somewhat active month for the Fram, as  I should have concluded from a couple of today's post. The main difference that I can see is that in past years(in winter months) the Arctic was continuously making new ice at a rate that outpaced the export.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2016, 10:03:00 PM by Tigertown »
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jai mitchell

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1240 on: December 06, 2016, 10:34:00 PM »
Given the right push from the wind, we might actually be having 2 or more times the typical Fram flow being destroyed.

Typical as a percentage of total ice volume remaining in the previous year's Sept minumum, certainly not more than the typical absolute value of Fram flow volume, since this value dropped considerably after 1998 and again after 2007 (as the average ice pack thinned out, especially the parts that were not fasted to Greenland).
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jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1241 on: December 06, 2016, 11:08:13 PM »
Given the right push from the wind, we might actually be having 2 or more times the typical Fram flow being destroyed.

Typical as a percentage of total ice volume remaining in the previous year's Sept minumum, certainly not more than the typical absolute value of Fram flow volume, since this value dropped considerably after 1998 and again after 2007 (as the average ice pack thinned out, especially the parts that were not fasted to Greenland).
Concur - more extent being pushed into the killing zone(s), but the ice being pushed is half the thickness (or less) that it was.
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charles_oil

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1242 on: December 07, 2016, 12:39:18 AM »
Maddoc - sorry as I didn't know which you were referring to, or what you know!
 
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1229 on: December 06, 2016, 01:38:04 PM »


As I suspected, the new 6 Dec NSIDC report specifically addresses, and cautions about using the global total (well worth reading), and provides a link through which you can get the data via http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/archives.html.

##
Global sea ice far below average

Figure 7. This time series of daily global sea ice extent (Arctic plus Antarctic, month and first day of month on the x axis) shows global extent tracking below the 1981 to 2010 average. ###Link Provided to data###.

Credit:W. Meier, NASA Cryospheric Sciences, GSFC


logicmanPatrick

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1243 on: December 07, 2016, 01:41:37 AM »
I have just been browsing through some of my old articles about the Arctic.  When the current ice extent is compared with the historic extent shown in old maps such as the one below, the current extremely low level of Arctic sea ice becomes frighteningly apparent.
From http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/arctic_ice_october_2010


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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1244 on: December 07, 2016, 02:59:48 AM »
LogicmanPatrick, thanks so much for that very informative link.

The "spring ice extent" recorded on that beautiful map from 1930 caught my eye, as I am quite familiar with seas around Newfoundland, and with the history and geography of this place which is my home.

To my knowledge, sea-ice per se very rarely surrounds the island. 1974 was a bad year for ice, for example, with the very rare phenomenon of pack ice along the south coast and in Placentia Bay, which are normally ice-free, and have always been so.

The concentrated pack ice that drifts down the Labrador current in the spring along the NE coast of the island (ie, harp seal whelping ice) rarely makes it as far as the entire Grand Banks area, as the map depicts, because the waters are so much warmer there.

This route is also called Iceberg Alley, of course, for good reason, so it seems to me that the map, in the case of Newfoundland at least, is probably showing the absolute farthest possible reach of icebergs---which are a bit of a different kettle of fish from sea ice and can travel quite far south before melting out----or hitting something. ;)

Jim Williams

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1245 on: December 07, 2016, 03:10:21 AM »
I have just been browsing through some of my old articles about the Arctic.  When the current ice extent is compared with the historic extent shown in old maps such as the one below, the current extremely low level of Arctic sea ice becomes frighteningly apparent.
From http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/arctic_ice_october_2010

I'm guessing that is max extent, given that Greenland is named Greenland, but I could be wrong....I know that my father (born 1918) mentioned Puget Sound freezing over when he was a kid...

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1246 on: December 07, 2016, 03:42:18 AM »
Accumulated Freezing Degree Days N80 thru Dec 06, 2016:

Climatology:1525.13
2016: 786.76
Anomaly: -738.37



Implied new ice thickness to date:
Per Lebedev:
Climo: 1.156 m
2016: 0.782 m 

Per Berillo:
Climo: 0.934 m
2016: 0.636 m

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1247 on: December 07, 2016, 04:28:59 AM »
I'm guessing that is max extent, given that Greenland is named Greenland, but I could be wrong....I know that my father (born 1918) mentioned Puget Sound freezing over when he was a kid...

I always thought the best-supported reason is that Greenland was called that to entice unwitting settlers - something to do with Erik the Red, following his exile, iirc.

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1248 on: December 07, 2016, 05:42:35 AM »
In terms of freezing degree days, check out spatial means for October, November, and 23 days before December 6th combined with next 7 day forecast.  It'll be interesting to track how these areas respond during melting season.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2016, 05:50:07 AM by Ice Shieldz »

jdallen

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Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1249 on: December 07, 2016, 06:23:37 AM »
In terms of freezing degree days, check out spatial means for October, November, and 23 days before December 6th combined with next 7 day forecast.  It'll be interesting to track how these areas respond during melting season.
We're not getting into the part of the refreeze where those negative degree days start to be really painful.

Up to this point, I think the core of the freezing season - December to March - could still permit substantial recovery and thickening of the ice.

With the incredible anomalies forecast - even if they're only half of what's suggested - the implications for the heat budget are pretty dire.  If the split vortex settles in, we'll see pretty constant expulsion of the colder air in Arctic Breakouts, and similar intrusions of heat across the Barents and Bering.  It will quite possibly exceed 2015 as reflected by the madness in the DMI 80N temperatures.  In that case, the already weak ice, insulated with fairly thick snow - 20-30CM across most of the current extent - will have no opportunity to thicken.  We could reach March with close to 2016 maximum extent (not very hard) but with 15-20% thinner ice, and much of last seasons heat preserved under it. 

Note in 2017, we won't have a huge slug of thick MYI in the Beaufort to slow things down - it got eaten last year - and the Atlantic side shows no signs of cooling off, at all, and is rapidly consuming every bit of MYI that's being shoved into it.

Color me, pessimistic.
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