Support the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and Blog

Author Topic: The 2016/2017 freezing season  (Read 1468863 times)

plg

  • New ice
  • Posts: 76
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1600 on: December 25, 2016, 02:32:51 PM »
I've started to consistently use what I will call the ASCII dating scheme.   27 Dec 2015 would sort next to 27 Dec 2014.  20151227 sorts right next to the days before and after.  So would 20161231.)
I call that an ISO date - is there an ASCII standard for date formats as well?

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/iso8601.htm

That would sort fine too, but the dashes are unnecessary.  It would have to be one or the other to work.  mixing with and without dashes would not sort in ASCII standard order.  ASCII (now called UTF-8) is a character encoding that fits in a byte.  It has a natural sort order simply by treating the characters as numbers, so if you plug dates in that format into just about any computer program that likes to sort things in alphabetical order then they will sort into date order.  (The obvious case being filenames in a directory.)
Agreed. I was being pedantic, Jim. ISO date format is with or without the dashes. It's a standard sortable date format in programming.

<offtopic>
Re being pedantic: The date format is described is ISO 8601, which is also used in RFCs governing internet standards, as well as in many other places. Regarding ASCII, ASCII is still ASCII, however it is a proper subset of UTF8 (and ISO 8856-1 and many others). To my knowledge there is no character encoding (including EBCDIC) that would fail to sort ISO 8601 in proper order.

(This comment may be subject to Muphry's law.)
</offtopic>

Now back to watching the slow but ponderous catastrophe unfolding in the arctic.
If you are not paranoid you just do not have enough information yet.

Jim Hunt

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6268
  • Don't Vote NatC or PopCon, Save Lives!
    • View Profile
    • The Arctic sea ice Great White Con
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 87
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1601 on: December 25, 2016, 02:45:51 PM »
Is Santa currently cooling off after last night's exertions in a hastily constructed  secret (winter) solstice swimming pool?

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/12/december-2016-arctic-report-card/#comment-216816
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1602 on: December 25, 2016, 03:27:48 PM »
Quote
Jai: weigh in on 2016 events?
A) exclusively sea ice loss and arctic ocean heat advection
B) exclusively tropical region water vapor transport into the region independent of arctic conditions
C) primarily sea ice loss and arctic ocean heat advection with some tropical regime impacts
D) primarily tropical region water vapor transport with some arctic regime impacts
Climate change science desperately needs to get out from under the long shadow of K Trenberth, 72. 

The scenarios above have been thoroughly developed in an easy-read, open-source 2014 review that elicited an astonishing 232 cites in 28 months. If we could get 10 people out of our 1119 registrants to actually read it, it would be great to update with a follow-on discussion. http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_NGeo14.pdf

Yes the tropics take in more solar heat, evaporate more water, have more convection and inevitably dissipate their heat gradient; no, the utter failure of El Nino tele prediction (that I noted here ten months ago), the continuing inability to actually explain observed arctic amplification. and the completely unanticipated -- and drastic -- 2016 fall freezing season establish that a tropical emphasis is not explaining observation nor forecasting reliably even a few years out. Something big is missing.

The Arctic Ocean is the weakest link in the chain. It will be the first to go and take the rest down with it. Into swift uncharted waters that the scientific process cannot keep up with. AGU2016: the Arctic has warmed enough that people are finally ready to take off the gloves:

GC21I-07:
Arctic vs Tropical Influence Over the Period of Arctic Amplification including Winter 2015/16
JL Cohen, JA Francis, KPfeffer

The tropics in general and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in particular are almost exclusively relied upon for seasonal forecasting. Much less considered and certainly more controversial is the idea that Arctic variability is influencing mid-latitude weather.

However, since the late 1980s and early 1990s the Arctic has undergone the most rapid warming observed globally, referred to as Arctic amplification, which has coincided with an observed increase in extreme weather.

Analysis of observed trends in hemispheric circulation over the period of Arctic amplification more closely resembles variability associated with Arctic boundary forcings than with tropical forcing.

Furthermore, analysis of intra-seasonal temperature variability shows that the cooling in mid-latitude winter temperatures has been accompanied by an increase in temperature variability and not a decrease, popularly referred to as “weather whiplash.”

When a record El Niño occurred this past winter, it should have been an opportunity to showcase decades of research and resources dedicated to the study of the ENSO phenomenon and its global impacts. However the dynamical forecasts performed poorly this past winter.

Instead we will show that many of the significant circulation anomalies of this past winter are related to high latitude processes.

We believe that the failed forecasts of this past winter will serve as a watershed moment and an inflection point in climate science. Climate science requires a paradigm shift in order to improve long-range forecasts. Less reliance on the tropics and exploration of new regions of predictability, including the Arctic, are required.

See also:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Judah_Cohen2/publications all free full text

Quote
it's not too late for ice to thicken properly in 2017
Magical thinking is not going to help with that.

Open water in the Chukchi is finally freezing over. However with SMOS, this silly binary concept can be refined by tracking the area of Arctic Ocean in which the ice remains less that 0.5 m thick. That will prove an eyeopener.

As Chris explained here many times, provided the air above is cold and the fluffy insulating snow is thin, new ice from bottom freeze will happen rapidly at first but then plateau asymptotically at about 2m thickness as dictated by the heat equation.

Poleward of the Barents, the situation today is not to be believed: the area north of Severnaya Zemlya has re-opened and the ice front overall has retreated to almost 85ºN. If the heat, winds and moisture advection keep up, I'd say head down to Costco. More likely, the ice will superficially advance later in the winter so here again we'll be tracking the SMOS edge.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2016, 07:38:58 PM by A-Team »

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1603 on: December 25, 2016, 04:54:44 PM »
I thought I might check a couple more points between Svalbard and the waters north of FJL, but using CMEMS hourly mean temperature, and 49 cm depth. Here' s what came up between the 15th and 26th.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

DrTskoul

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1455
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 210
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1604 on: December 25, 2016, 05:01:26 PM »
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and let's hope we don't need that freeze dried food any time soon!!!

TenneyNaumer

  • New ice
  • Posts: 76
    • View Profile
    • Climate Change: The Next Generation
  • Liked: 2
  • Likes Given: 22
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1605 on: December 25, 2016, 05:15:30 PM »
Bairgon, please could you tell me how you access these images?  Is there a page where one can pick the latest photos by location?

Thanks much!

Tenney

I believe the storm has made itself felt.

The leads at the head of Nares have collapsed indicating that the ice has not formed a rigid bridge between Greenland and Ellesmere.

Compare NOAA picture from 23rd Dec at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Lincoln/201612231322.NOAA.jpg with the most recent clear picture from 19th Dec at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Lincoln/201612191227.NOAA.jpg

The Sentinel 1 pictures of the straight show that export is still happening: 22nd Dec at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Kennedy/20161222s01a.ASAR.jpg vs 23rd Dec at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Kennedy/20161223s01a.ASAR.jpg shows movement down the channel, particularly on the northern side.

charles_oil

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 337
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 38
  • Likes Given: 74
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1606 on: December 25, 2016, 05:43:21 PM »
Tenney - try
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/kennedy.uk.php

for Sentinel images

To choose a different area around Greenland select from the image lower left.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1607 on: December 25, 2016, 09:20:59 PM »
I thought I might check a couple more points between Svalbard and the waters north of FJL, but using CMEMS hourly mean temperature, and 49 cm depth. Here' s what came up between the 15th and 26th.

Those numbers are absolutely unnerving!
This space for Rent.

Sigmetnow

  • Multi-year ice
  • Posts: 25759
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1153
  • Likes Given: 430
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1608 on: December 25, 2016, 09:44:24 PM »
Forecast for Jan 3, 2017.

Judah Cohen:  GFS first predicted the oceanic ridge bridge (can I coin that?) but the ECMWF took it to a whole other level today.  Interesting times.
https://twitter.com/judah47/status/812870426951094273
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Jim Williams

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 398
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1609 on: December 25, 2016, 11:22:36 PM »
MASIE sure is encouraging today...

aslan

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 226
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 175
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1610 on: December 26, 2016, 12:04:16 AM »
with regards to studies of equable climates, posted this here 2 weeks ago

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1611.msg96837.html#msg96837



Yep good discussion ;) In the end, a big part of the answer for equable climates probably lies in the cloud. High clouds and some refinements of clouds proprieties are particularly suspected for explaining equable climates, event though the exact picture is still not clear.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1611 on: December 26, 2016, 03:22:15 PM »
It feels like the Spring time outside my home this morning. The average NH temp anomaly is +0.9C today but will be +1.1C one week from now. The average Arctic temp anomaly will be up to +3.8C by then. I think it a little more ominous that the NH anomaly is growing this time of year, which you can actually see on the map. Good thing I am not a gambler; would have bet the farm on the anomaly over the Arctic to at the very least abated till Summer.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1612 on: December 26, 2016, 08:45:10 PM »
Greetings all;

I've been watching the circled region on the DMI concentration charts with some interest recently.

If you recall, during the melt season, we saw similar weakness arise in the same areas. There was some debate over the cause at that juncture.

As I recall, there was some discussion as to whether or not the weaker areas reflected the presence of heat imported via the West Spitzenbergen current, or similar flows to the east of the islands.

I'm debating that now as well, but think there at least one counter hypothesis as well that might be quite good.  That would be the sheering effect of zonal winds with a high gradient between pressure centers.  The ice generally being less solid - even thicker MYI ice present on the Atlantic side is far from homogeneous, broken and welded indifferently with thinner weaker FYI - it should be far more mobile than the pack has been even in just the last few years.

So, are we seeing the effects of imported heat expressing itself?  The localized effect of wind generated by our storms?  A combination of both?  Or something else entirely?
This space for Rent.

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1613 on: December 26, 2016, 09:06:54 PM »
A-Team,

Thank you for your lengthy and cogent response.  I am working through it.  Thank you for the first link.  It is a good paper, it talks about the subject, however, for analysis of the potential of Tropical/Midlatitude temp gradients, and the introduction of tropical-sourced water vapor and latent heat into the Arctic as a driver of Arctic amplification, the three sourced papers were published in 2008 and 2012.  This means that the datasets used to develop them are probably from 2007 and 2011 at the latest (cited work is: Screen, J. A., Deser, C. & Simmonds, I. Local and remote controls on observed Arctic warming. Geophys. Res Lett. 39, L10709 (2012), Graversen, R. G., Mauritsen, T., Tjernstrom, M., Kallen, E. & Svensson, G. Vertical structure of recent Arctic warming. Nature 451, 53–56 (2008), and Allen, R. J. & Sherwood, S. C. Warming maximum in the tropical upper troposphere deduced from thermal winds. Nature Geosci. 1, 399–403 (2008)

The system has changed, fundamentally, in a clear and direct way.  The inputs of south eastern aerosol point-source reduction have not been considered to the degree that they need to be in its impacts on tropical warming/rainfall patterns.  The reduction of these tropospheric aerosols is likely a significant factor in this year's rapid expansion of tropical-sourced heat and water vapor into the arctic via the oceanic pathways, leading to WACC.

more later.



Quote
Jai: weigh in on 2016 events?
A) exclusively sea ice loss and arctic ocean heat advection
B) exclusively tropical region water vapor transport into the region independent of arctic conditions
C) primarily sea ice loss and arctic ocean heat advection with some tropical regime impacts
D) primarily tropical region water vapor transport with some arctic regime impacts
Climate change science desperately needs to get out from under the long shadow of K Trenberth, 72. 

The scenarios above have been thoroughly developed in an easy-read, open-source 2014 review that elicited an astonishing 232 cites in 28 months. If we could get 10 people out of our 1119 registrants to actually read it, it would be great to update with a follow-on discussion. http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_NGeo14.pdf

Yes the tropics take in more solar heat, evaporate more water, have more convection and inevitably dissipate their heat gradient; no, the utter failure of El Nino tele prediction (that I noted here ten months ago), the continuing inability to actually explain observed arctic amplification. and the completely unanticipated -- and drastic -- 2016 fall freezing season establish that a tropical emphasis is not explaining observation nor forecasting reliably even a few years out. Something big is missing.
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1614 on: December 26, 2016, 09:25:18 PM »
A-Team,
<snippage>

The system has changed, fundamentally, in a clear and direct way.  The inputs of south eastern aerosol point-source reduction have not been considered to the degree that they need to be in its impacts on tropical warming/rainfall patterns.  The reduction of these tropospheric aerosols is likely a significant factor in this year's rapid expansion of tropical-sourced heat and water vapor into the arctic via the oceanic pathways, leading to WACC.
<more snippage>

Let me echo what Jai said and thank you.  I'm digesting the papers as well, if more clumsily.  Going over Judah Cohen's paper (Recent Arctic amplification and extreme
mid-latitude weather), and considering other recent sources I've seen, I'm finding myself very much in agreement with the assertion the system has changed fundamentally and the previous stable circulation regime has broken.

It is further compelling from Cohen's paper, that the loss of ice, particularly on the Atlantic side in the Barents and Kara has had a disproportionate effect on winter circulation in the mid-latitudes.  This appears to be causing an accelerating cascade of climate effects which most obviously are playing out in the Arctic, but are also showing up with the increasing frequency of extreme weather events in the mid-latitudes.
This space for Rent.

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1615 on: December 26, 2016, 09:32:21 PM »
Back to my other comment, an animation of concentration from Worldview.  It is looking to me like the region of weakness is a persistent feature, matched similarly with another one as well running north from the east of Svalbard towards the Laptev.

To me this implies we are seeing something beyond just the effect of wind.

I've added a gif of movement from about Nov 16 to Dec 23rd for illustration.

(12KM sea ice concentration on EOSDIS Worldview)
« Last Edit: December 26, 2016, 09:38:55 PM by jdallen »
This space for Rent.

DrTskoul

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1455
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 210
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1616 on: December 26, 2016, 10:06:48 PM »
The feature seems to be at the north border of the transpolar drift current.

FishOutofWater

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1088
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 696
  • Likes Given: 332
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1617 on: December 26, 2016, 10:09:07 PM »
Judah Cohen's papers are a must read for anyone who wants to understand the changes in Arctic weather. I've been looking at custom plots to make sense of what's been happening this fall & early winter. One thing to notice is how cloudiness and absolute humidity has been higher than normal from the central north Atlantic across the Arctic to the Bering sea. This winter season, to date, high absolute humidity is impeding heat loss to space from the vast areas of open water where sea ice used to be in the Arctic.

Custom image 40 to 90 north of the specific humidity anomaly at 850mb, courtesy of NOAA PSD.


A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1618 on: December 26, 2016, 10:42:30 PM »
Quote
we are seeing something beyond just the effect of wind.
Quote
loss of ice, particularly on the Atlantic side in the Barents and Kara has had a disproportionate effect on winter circulation in the mid-latitudes.  This appears to be causing an accelerating cascade of climate effects
Quote
high absolute humidity is impeding heat loss to space from the vast areas of open water where sea ice used to be in the Arctic.
Right. It all reminds me of Mt Rainier. Sure, one Pacific low after another sweeps in [~tropics]. Stick a 4400 m volcano in there, it gets hit by the lows but then makes its own weather [~Arctic amplification followed by loss of sea ice]. Followed by dry trees on the lee side dying from bark beetle infestation [~mid-latitude extreme storms]. If you didn't know about the mountain, the beetle breakout would be baffling (~normal variation).

The first animation looks at seemingly persistent mid-concentration ice (blueish, final 2-3 frames) in a sea of 100% solid ice (black) and at day-on-day changes at the retreating front (yellow). Might just be interference from a slowly passing weather pattern. [See jdallen's analysis of same feature in #1612 above.]

The second considers MIMIC Total Precipitable Water extra-tropical plumes as a possible multi-day predictor of mid-tropical moisture pulses reaching the Barents and beyond (left); thick ice area taken as {ice - SMOS thin ice - open water} is just wobbling ±3% about the mean for the entire month of December suggesting negligible thickening this month between 0.5 m ice and thicker (right).
« Last Edit: December 27, 2016, 12:22:08 PM by A-Team »

oren

  • Moderator
  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 9805
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 3584
  • Likes Given: 3922
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1619 on: December 27, 2016, 12:30:48 AM »
A-Team and all thanks for the very interesting discussion. That little SMOS animation is very telling.
And I intend to read up these papers in the next few days, though I doubt if I can contribute anything of intelligence.

Cid_Yama

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 232
    • View Profile
    • The Post Peak Oil Historian
  • Liked: 27
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1620 on: December 27, 2016, 12:34:27 AM »
Quote from: A=Team
Yes the tropics take in more solar heat, evaporate more water, have more convection and inevitably dissipate their heat gradient; no, the utter failure of El Nino tele prediction (that I noted here ten months ago), the continuing inability to actually explain observed arctic amplification. and the completely unanticipated -- and drastic -- 2016 fall freezing season establish that a tropical emphasis is not explaining observation nor forecasting reliably even a few years out. Something big is missing.

We are constantly told (usually by the same people), that this or that is impossible, only to have it happen.  After the fact, we discover that we had been asking the wrong equations, that in the rear view mirror, it had been obvious all along.

The phenomena associated with the redistribution of heat in the atmosphere is a perfect example, where we watch heat dissipate in one place only to see it reemerge in a  totally unexpected and (seemingly) unconnected place.

The thing with paradigm shifts, it usually takes the previous generation and the equations to which they are wedded, to die off and get out of the way, before the shift can occur.

Rarely does a generation have the opportunity to be proved utterly and thoroughly wrong in their own lifetime.

But yes, it is time to go meta and ask if we are even asking the right questions.  The
new conceptualization will only follow from that.

The one thing we do know, is it is all about the redistribution of heat. 
           
"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." - Patrick Henry

Cid_Yama

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 232
    • View Profile
    • The Post Peak Oil Historian
  • Liked: 27
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1621 on: December 27, 2016, 12:43:57 AM »
Quote
high absolute humidity is impeding heat loss to space from the vast areas of open water where sea ice used to be in the Arctic.

Actually the heat loss to space remains (relatively) constant. (At least so far, never say never.)

The humidity is impeding the heat loss to the upper atmosphere, keeping the heat close to the ground.


"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." - Patrick Henry

bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1622 on: December 27, 2016, 01:06:29 AM »
When comparing with previous worst years on record, 2012 especially, it becomes apparent that the extent #s this year don't tell the whole story. In my eyes it looks like we are seeing an ongoing change, which is shifting ice formation from the highest latitudes towards the upper-mid-latitudes, as the below plainly illustrates. Whether this continues in years to come remains to be seen but I do not think it is coincidental.

As you can see, in comparison to 2012 (and most recent years), Okhotsk is doing extremely well and the Atlantic front is also healthier than many years adjacent to Canada, thanks to the continental cooling we are now seeing, while the impact of the lows on both the Chukchi and Barents is now turning them into nearly year-round ice-free states...

The bottom line is that NSIDC/IJIS are hiding the true extent of this year's horror story unfolding up north as the gains in the northern mid latitudes/southernmost polar areas will not be thick enough to last through the summer, while the shortfalls in the northernmost areas that would typically make it through summer are shockingly bad.






bbr2314

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1817
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 158
  • Likes Given: 53
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1623 on: December 27, 2016, 01:09:17 AM »
Should be noted this change holds going back almost 30 yrs... even the early 80s show a similar shift ongoing.


FishOutofWater

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1088
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 696
  • Likes Given: 332
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1624 on: December 27, 2016, 01:20:30 AM »
Quote
high absolute humidity is impeding heat loss to space from the vast areas of open water where sea ice used to be in the Arctic.

Actually the heat loss to space remains (relatively) constant. (At least so far, never say never.)

The humidity is impeding the heat loss to the upper atmosphere, keeping the heat close to the ground.

Sea ice impedes the transfer of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. One of the stabilizing factors in the Arctic is the increased radiative loss of heat from the ocean to space during the winter night, but clouds are reducing the efficiency of that process at present.

Net heat loss to space may have remained relatively constant but you can see from long wave radiation maps that clouds affect outgoing long wave radiation patterns.

As you can see from the attached map the whole Arctic ocean region has had a positive OLR anomaly for the past 90 days and the anomaly has been very strong over the Barents sea.


be cause

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2441
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 1012
  • Likes Given: 1034
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1625 on: December 27, 2016, 01:40:37 AM »
part of the heat redistribution is clearly visible this evening on dmi modis kennedy .. some of the thickest ice is moving freely , taking @ 10 days to travel the Nares (current rates ). The sentinel images show the free movement down Nares .. and looking along the coast Fram is in full flow .
Running HYCOM concentration series shows the huge amount of thicker ice exiting the Arctic .
 Meanwhile dmi 80N temperatures have fallen today to where they were making headlines last year ...
 As A-team kindly pointed out to me recently .. the science is lagging way behind what is happening .. becoming an historical archive ,out of date by the time of review and publication . We are watching the paradigm shift as it happens .
« Last Edit: December 27, 2016, 01:47:37 AM by be cause »
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1626 on: December 27, 2016, 03:53:32 AM »
Its been a rough last few days in the Arctic. A review of winds and drift for 23rd to 26th.
Click image please to activate.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1627 on: December 27, 2016, 03:58:25 AM »
I don't quite know what to make of the next few days.
Again, click image to activate.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

budmantis

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1220
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 7
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1628 on: December 27, 2016, 06:09:21 AM »
Looks like export from the Fram slows down or stops for a couple days, then resumes. I think we're all aware that continued export from the Fram Strait will result in the loss of a lot of MYI that remains.

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1629 on: December 27, 2016, 06:17:35 AM »
I am afraid that the days the ice gets pushed the other way, all that is going to do, is loosen it up more, so that it can flow easier.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2016, 07:24:45 AM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

budmantis

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1220
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 7
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1630 on: December 27, 2016, 07:59:30 AM »
Hard to find any good news when it comes to sea ice these days.

Pmt111500

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1631 on: December 27, 2016, 08:02:06 AM »
On wacc, it's a natural response for the warmer oceans in tropics as warm currents stay on surface. As there's a lot more tropical ocean than arctic ocean it's no surprise Arctic warms first and starts to generate clouds instead of consuming them (falling snow). Thus the relative humidity stays constantly high. We still have coriolis force to direct the ocean currents.

Darvince

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 318
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 31
  • Likes Given: 7
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1632 on: December 27, 2016, 12:39:27 PM »
Based on the GFS, I think the story for the next few days is a brief glimpse of normality (so rebuilding of the ice on the Atlantic side) as a high pressure builds in over the Arctic Ocean and then another heat pulse into the Arctic, this time on the Pacific side.


Pavel

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 263
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 48
  • Likes Given: 9
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1633 on: December 27, 2016, 01:59:42 PM »
It seems the Bering sea ends the freezing season mostly ice-free as it still warm and lack of cold air in this area

Jim Hunt

  • First-year ice
  • Posts: 6268
  • Don't Vote NatC or PopCon, Save Lives!
    • View Profile
    • The Arctic sea ice Great White Con
  • Liked: 893
  • Likes Given: 87
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1634 on: December 27, 2016, 07:09:19 PM »
I think the story for the next few days is a brief glimpse of normality (so rebuilding of the ice on the Atlantic side).

It's certainly not normal at the moment. Svalbard sea ice area is lowest for the date in records going back to 1967:

http://greatwhitecon.info/resources/arctic-regional-graphs/svalbard-sea-ice-graphs/
"The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening" - Rosa Luxemburg

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1635 on: December 27, 2016, 09:57:59 PM »
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,784.msg97604.html#msg97604

Another example of the Pacific/Atlantic "see-saw" of tropical water vapor moving into the arctic (from tropic wave to mid latitude and then moved up through jet stream cut off lows and higher latitude blocking patterns consistent with the Francis&Vavrus effect of a slowing jetstream

Scroll ahead to see the full effects in 5 days hence.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 08:13:49 PM by jai mitchell »
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1636 on: December 27, 2016, 10:12:31 PM »
Quote
It's certainly not normal at the moment.
Agreed. There's some indication (according to nullschool GFS) that surface winds will be organizing themselves into Arctic Ocean wide clockwise circulation through Dec 31st. The shifting center of rotation is marked with a yellow star; wind speeds and temperature are shown at the 22 Jan 15 position of the RV Lance on N-ICE2015.

The second animation rocks between 26 Dec and 31 Dec 2016 (per hycom thickness) with the euler pole shown by a gold star with latitude circles at 1, 3, and 5 degrees. As the ice pack comes up against Greenland, the ice cannot rotate and so is compressed. The point of compression defines ice destined for the Fram and ice that will be squeezed westward.

The third animation (adapted from an earlier post by Ttown ~#1550 of Global Ocean Physics Analysis and Forecast) shows calculated water temperatures at a half meter depth out to Dec 30th. It seems to be doing quite a good job showing currents in this area.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 12:04:15 AM by A-Team »

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1637 on: December 28, 2016, 04:17:40 PM »
The first animation looks at cloud moisture over the Barents Sea (TCW total cloud water @ nullschool) for 10 Dec to 01 Jan 17. A system has come up from the sub-tropics that would display better at 3 hour intervals (not shown) than daily.

The second animation shows large scale features below the pole on AMSR2 low concentration have persisted for 4 days now, drifting to the SW along with ice pack. These features seem intrinsic to the ice surface as they are absent from TPW, TCW, and band 31 imagery (ie are not intervening atmospheric artifacts). However they are missing from SMOS thin ice as well.

On Sentinel-1AB, the ice pack shows light floes and intervening dark areas; on mosaics, a dark swath corresponds approximately to the blueish features on AMSR2 but here mosaics are built from multiple unlabelled days, not just multiple unlabelled but same-day orbital swaths. Earlier posts show pronounced compression toward fixed Greenland, not shearing, ridging or extension has been affecting this area.

Thus the light floes are probably older thicker ice left over from the summer and the intervening dark areas are water frozen this fall to thicknesses greater than the half-meter cutoff of SMOS, with AMSR2 then reporting lower sea ice concentrations when it is actually all 100% but binned into two quite different thickness and microwave emission categories: useful but 'off-label'. Thinner ice would better represent water temperatures below; thicker ice more contacting air temperatures in terms of black body emissions.

The final animation just compares global TPW on mercator to TPW on polar stereographic with and without winds shown. Neither of the palettes is favorable for displaying Svalbard region details.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 05:48:49 PM by A-Team »

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1638 on: December 28, 2016, 05:15:33 PM »
It is starting to seem like the warm-moisture flow to the Arctic is going to be a regular feature.
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Buddy

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3379
  • Go DUCKS!!
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 49
  • Likes Given: 34
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1639 on: December 28, 2016, 05:19:58 PM »
There have been SOOOOO many times this fall and winter.....that BOTH the Bering Strait and the Fram Strait have been hammered with MUCH warmer than normal temps.

The Atlantic side has been hammered....and Svalbard is basically ice free.  And on the Pacific side.....the northern coast of Alaska has been really late to freeze.

Does not bode well for the coming spring/summer/fall in the Arctic.

FOX (RT) News....."The Trump Channel.....where truth and journalism are dead."

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1640 on: December 28, 2016, 05:50:24 PM »
It is starting to seem like the warm-moisture flow to the Arctic is going to be a regular feature.

if it continues through the summer this increased water vapor will actually lead to cooler temperatures, as was seen last July.

The precipitable water intrusion happened throughout 2013 due to the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge that elevatored mid-latitude moisture into the arctic.  However we did not have a similar pattern in the Atlantic.

the summers of 2013 an 2014 were much cooler than normal leading to increased sea ice volume and extent. 
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1641 on: December 28, 2016, 06:00:34 PM »
It is starting to seem like the warm-moisture flow to the Arctic is going to be a regular feature.

if it continues through the summer this increased water vapor will actually lead to cooler temperatures, as was seen last July.

The precipitable water intrusion happened throughout 2013 due to the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge that elevatored mid-latitude moisture into the arctic.  However we did not have a similar pattern in the Atlantic.

the summers of 2013 an 2014 were much cooler than normal leading to increased sea ice volume and extent.
Yes - moisture in winter - bad. Moisture in summer, not so bad, but not exactly good either.  A pack weakened by anemic winter refreeze will still be vulnerable even to 2013/2014 conditions.

Meanwhile, I'm seeing what appears to be at least a modest respite - high pressure appears to be building over the central basin and the worst of the winter bonfire is dying down to merely higher than normal temperatures.  The question will be whether mid-latitude circulation decided to throw more fuel on the fire after the 1st of the year.

(edit - I take that back - no rest for the arctic - GFS shows a massive surge on the Pacific side starting this weekend. - see capture below for Jan 2nd.)
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 06:08:22 PM by jdallen »
This space for Rent.

jai mitchell

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 2357
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 207
  • Likes Given: 60
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1642 on: December 28, 2016, 08:12:02 PM »
(edit - I take that back - no rest for the arctic - GFS shows a massive surge on the Pacific side starting this weekend. - see capture below for Jan 2nd.)

As I cryptically posted here:  http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1611.msg97605.html#msg97605

sorry, should have labeled it better will edit
Haiku of Futures Passed
My "burning embers"
are not tri-color bar graphs
+3C today

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1643 on: December 28, 2016, 09:02:08 PM »
Quote
better will edit
Nice exposition, Jai. Would be more helpful to others here to learn if tropical moisture transport section were somewhat expanded and carefully illustrated.

Zack put up an astonishing average surface temperature anomaly contour for the month of December today ... if these numbers are at all sustained in winter 2017, then it is game-over for the ice despite summer feedbacks on melt.

However it's not clear if post-Arctic climate change is a staircase (with multi-year pauses between steps) or simply a runaway exit ramp (with pauses, if any, scarcely discernible).

The second image shows ice seemingly committed to export out the Fram, to the east of the line of stars. The CAA ice has been backing up the last several days.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 11:06:04 PM by A-Team »

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1644 on: December 28, 2016, 09:53:44 PM »
HYCOM has extended the Fram push through Jan. 4th on their forecast.
CLICK IMAGE
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 10:01:23 PM by Tigertown »
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.

Darvince

  • Frazil ice
  • Posts: 318
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 31
  • Likes Given: 7
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1645 on: December 28, 2016, 10:44:14 PM »
+ open water reëntering the Arctic on the Pacific side and retreat in Baffin.

Although I wouldn't exactly trust that considering the drift vectors don't shift at all with weather changes after Jan 1st, which seems highly unrealistic to me.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 11:26:46 PM by Darvince »

jdallen

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 3410
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 650
  • Likes Given: 244
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1646 on: December 28, 2016, 11:08:02 PM »
HYCOM has extended the Fram push through Jan. 4th on their forecast.
Considering HYCOM has most of the Arctic still well under 2M in thickness, *any* MYI being lost will hurt very badly.
This space for Rent.

A-Team

  • Young ice
  • Posts: 2977
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 944
  • Likes Given: 35
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1647 on: December 28, 2016, 11:48:20 PM »
Quote
hycom drift vectors don't shift at all with weather changes, which seems highly unrealistic
It's complete junk in my opinion and Hycom should drop the product. Note it is not showing vectors (which are straight) but rather ice trajectories with an arrow at one end. These are whole-day lines whose tangents (not shown) are instantaneous velocity vectors so it is very jerky between frames. The curvy lines are actually far too long and fat to represent one day's movement so they are only 'suggestive' motion. Far better to use 3-hour sprite fields like nullschool. And get rid of the incompetent base map.

However ice pack motion is not an integrable vector field for the same reason classical continuum mechanics is not applicable to it: leads, pressure ridges, landfast ice, boundary conditions, melt, export and so forth.

Even if we knew what wind was coming, we wouldn't know its effect on ice because that depends on ridges and keels. Water currents are independent of wind to some extent but not observable in the central ice pack by satellite during freeze season. There are only a handful of current moorings in the vast whole Arctic Ocean and these are read out once a year if that. N-ICE2015 did deploy a lot of doppler current readers (Long Rangers).

Usually these fields are displayed as itty bitty pairs of orthogonal arrows ^-> whose lengths represent zonal and poleward flow. NSIDC (and others) have archives for these but it is an ineffectual display and rarely shown.

However with the new Sentinel 1AB daily mosaics at DTU and automatic pattern recognition that nukefix reports in the SNAP toolbox -- neither of which Hycom is using -- we may soon see accurate year-round ice motion maps.

The best use of wind data is really over at TPW maps at U Wisc where they use it to fix the vexatious issue of joining up orbital swaths. However that's air velocity vectors acting on a scalar field, very different from ice as both are continuous.

Quote
Our normal experience of imagery from polar orbiters is either viewing single scans, or a composite of many orbitals valid within a several-hour time period. However, a smoother, more accurate representation is possible by “nudging” the water vapor data forward and backward with the local winds toward a common valid image time. The following example shows this process at work on a single section of one DMSP/SSMI orbital in the Atlantic Ocean, valid at 3 Sept 2004 1015 UTC.

Our algorithm “advects” the data backward and forward in time using a vertically-averaged wind field. This new advected dataset then can be used in a full sequence of composite images valid exactly on the hour (or at any desired timestep).

 That is, it uses the best possible estimate of the shape of the data at the valid time of the product rather than presenting a simple record of the data, which may not represent the atmosphere very well at the valid time.

From here, the compositing process is a simple matter of selecting the data nearest in time a) prior to the valid time, and b) subsequent to the valid time, as in this example at 14 October 2016 1100 UTC.

The final product is a temporally weighted average of the “prior” and “subsequent” composite data. For example, if one grid cell on the prior composite is 50 minutes before the valid time, and the corresponding cell on the subsequent composite is 150 minutes after the valid time, then the grid cell of the final product is 75% from the prior data and 25% from the subsequent data.

This allows for a very smooth and accurate depiction of a tracer from multiple sources. If the composite product valid time is close to the present, only the “prior” composite is used, meaning that the data shown has been advected forward from a time in the near past.

Because new satellite data is arriving almost continuously, the MIMIC-TPW2 product works by updating a full range of times affected by the new data. A given image and corresponding data file is likely to be overwritten with improved composites at least 20 times before it is in final form in the archive. (A composite is usually in “final form” 18 hours after the present time.)
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/about.html
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010JAMC2589.1 free full text
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 02:21:59 AM by A-Team »

magnamentis

  • Guest
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1648 on: December 29, 2016, 12:24:28 AM »
does anyone have an explanation for this apparently open water lead that persists now for quite some time and despite the fact that temps are sufficiently low in barrow to overfreeze any open water by now ? hope it's not an optical illusion or something like that but it's been there for a while now :-)

Tigertown

  • Nilas ice
  • Posts: 1678
    • View Profile
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 20
Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season
« Reply #1649 on: December 29, 2016, 12:47:52 AM »
Could it be that it is thin ice that formed after the last snowfall?
"....and the appointed time came for God to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." Revelation 11:18.