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Dharma Rupa

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #450 on: December 13, 2017, 10:28:19 PM »
See the NOAA report thread
link=topic=2213.msg136159#msg136159 date=1513160047

Quote:
Despite relatively cool summer temperatures, observations in 2017 continue to indicate that the Arctic environmental system has reached a 'new normal', characterized by long-term losses in the extent and thickness of the sea ice cover, the extent and duration of the winter snow cover and the mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet and Arctic glaciers, and warming sea surface and permafrost temperatures.

Otherwise known as WACC-y weather.

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #451 on: December 13, 2017, 11:41:15 PM »
American Geophysical Union 2017 Press Conference on the Arctic Report Card

 
December 13, 2017

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A-Team

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #452 on: December 13, 2017, 11:50:02 PM »
Quote
the Arctic environmental system has reached a 'new normal'
I sincerely doubt if anyone will step forward and admit to having writing that grossly misleading sentence but the implication -- that some sort of new 'equilibrium state' or pause in Arctic Amplification has set in -- is dead wrong.

The downward trend that continued in 2017 -- with record-setting delays in freeze-over in the western portal (Chukchi) --  is the exact opposite of the meaning of steady state in the physical sciences.

There is nothing normal about this trend. It is ever-worsening human disruption of climate by atmospheric emissions pollution.

Its consequences for mid-latitude weather are belatedly under discussion but will surely be exacerbated and possibly elevated to tipping point status as the trend takes us in the near term to even more extreme states.

In my view, the climate is undergoing unprecedented and largely unpredicted rapid change already, though very unevenly depending on location, eg the western coast of North America is hyper-sensitive to changes in the adjacent Pacific whereas as other areas might plod along at a barely noticeable 2ºC-by-2100.

For this reason, model papers that build on Old Arctic conditions should be rejected at the time of peer-review. It's not at all uncommon to read a December 2017 paper only to discover in the fine print that it assumes an entirely pre-2014 foundation.

Whoa ... a whole lot has happened since then, even with a discount for natural variation. Why wasn't that change in baseline conditions incorporated? A four year delay is unacceptable, long beyond the shelf life of utilizability. Only an eight of that is attributable to journal review.

I follow near-real and annual changes quite closely and have provided several thousand time series so that carefully sourced current data is readily available to even the laziest scientist on the planet. So what's the excuse for all the dilatory papers?

Perhaps the most disturbing example of not acknowledging the walrus in the tent is the Beaufort Gyre, which appears long-gone. In my view, it won't ever be coming back to what it was.

If you are too new here to remember the Beaufort Gyre, it was a quasi-stationary pattern in atmospheric highs and lows give rise to winds that caused a portion of the ice pack to circle tightly around for years in the Beaufort Sea. The same floes would thicken each winter and melt some each summer, extruding brine from recrystallizing ice and giving rise to a large reservoir of slightly less salty water (called a freshwater pool in oceanography).

I've reposted NSIDC's 1979-2015 sea ice age animation here many times. It uses weekly intervals which are very effective in displaying the years and seasons in which the Beaufort Gyre, TransArctic Drift and Fram Strait export were actually active.

Those don't include the most recent years. The weather pattern is just not re-establishing itself except episodically. Even when it does, there's no gyre, only a counter-current to the Alaskan Coastal Current that takes the ice -- now 79% first-year -- into the killing fields of the Chukchi. Remember the route traced by Big Block last year?

The Beaufort Sea today melts out completely every August and is late to refreeze. There is zero multi-year ice circling the Beaufort Gyre, though you would never know it from journal articles that go on and on about ye Olde Gyre like there was no tomorrow.

All gradients tend to dissipate. That's the second law of thermodynamics. Without continuing energy inputs from wind and current, there's nothing here to sustain former temperature, salinity, buoyancy gradients in the Beaufort Gyre center. They're dissipating. Gradients in nature are not sustained by claims in dead-on-arrival model papers.

The Arctic is changing too fast for the modeling community to keep up.  It's better to stay in the present.  So sleep well, the AMOC isn't safe but it won't be the Beaufort Gyre that does it in.

I'll post the year-in-review videos in due course.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2017, 11:58:04 PM by A-Team »

Reallybigbunny

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #453 on: December 14, 2017, 01:04:10 AM »
Nice summary, thanks A-Team!!!

Daniel B.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #454 on: December 14, 2017, 02:53:39 AM »
Perhaps they were just referring to a new normal in sea ice minima, which have leveled off over the past decade.  Just a thought.

miki

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #455 on: December 14, 2017, 05:01:22 AM »
Thanks A-Team. To call "new normal" a speeding transition seems to me narrow and misleading at the best.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 05:07:10 AM by miki »

Pmt111500

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #456 on: December 14, 2017, 05:44:11 AM »
Thanks A-team,

The 'new normal' is indeed quite a funny phrase. I've used it oftener than I would have liked but since there are people who do not acknowledge the melt in Greenland, this has been a funny way to incorporate dynamic change and huuge decreases in volume of ice in the 'normal'. I agree it's mostly a semantic trick to avoid saying 'your life wrt weather is about to experience some drastic changes.'
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 07:27:15 AM by Pmt111500 »

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #457 on: December 14, 2017, 06:12:34 AM »
Wrt Beaufort Gyre, the movement vectors of this have been traditionally been seen as a sum of coriolis-force generated current on top of the world and the atmospheric polar cell east winds circulating the Arctic High. This results in a clockwise circulation that can be interrupted only by large influxes of water, be it oceanic or fresh. As we've seen in recent years the high in arctic regularly breaks thus weakening the circulation and giving the influxes of water and high latitude low pressures a lower þreshold to actually switch the direction to counterclockwise rotation. This would help to keep the Atlantic border of icy waters more stable than the Pacific side which could be what we're nowadays seeing. The 'deadliest catch' crews might someday end up in Barrow in their final season.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #458 on: December 14, 2017, 06:25:47 AM »
previously, the semi-permanent Aleutian low has driven most of the waters entering from the Pacific towards the East Siberian sea from whence they Transpolar Drifted to N. Atlantic. With the Beaufort lows we're seeing more regularly now the influx is directed more to stay in Chucki even trying to enter Beaufort east of Barrow. Should check some recent measurements if they're publicly available in the current political climate (thats not a forbidden phrase, i guess), so take these three posts with a grain of sand (my attempts to summarize science usually have at least a glitch or two)

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #459 on: December 14, 2017, 03:21:20 PM »
On the ASIB I have used 'new abnormal' in the past.   ;D
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #460 on: December 14, 2017, 03:38:12 PM »
A-Team, maybe you've already seen this (if not, sorry for not posting earlier):

Quote
Special issue to highlight impact of changes in Arctic climate
INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

There's controversy in climate change research--not whether climate change exists, but how the evidence is gathered and used to inform predictions. To help bring convergence to the field and potentially accelerate action, a special issue of the Advances in Atmospheric Sciences is highlighting recent scientific work.

"Our understanding of Arctic-midlatitude linkages is still at a pre-consensus stage," said Thomas Jung, a professor of climate dynamics at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. He also co-authored the issue's preface as a guest editor. "...it is important, therefore, to bring together the latest research results."

Titled, "Towards improving understanding and prediction of Arctic change and its linkage with Eurasian mid-latitude weather and climate" ---or "Impact of a Rapidly Changing Arctic on Eurasian Climate and Weather" for short---the special issue focuses on understanding how changes in the Arctic influence the mid-latitude regions of the globe. These areas sandwich the central tropical region. They are capped by the Earth's poles, and include Europe, most of Asia, north Africa, and much of North America.

While the increased near-surface temperature of the Arctic and the significantly decreased sea ice are undisputed facts, the link between such changes and the extreme climate and weather events in the mid-latitudes is still debated.

"The results published in the journal further present where divergence occurs," said the lead editor of the special issue and preface co-author Xiangdong Zhang, a professor at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the United States. Zhang noted that this knowledge will help scientists identify areas in need of collaborative work.

The special issue includes observational results and modelling work on the problem of Arctic and Eurasian climate links, yet the work does not yet clarify the correlation. According to Zhang, areas of progress include the use of different prediction models, an increased data sample size with the help of coupled model simulations, as well as more focus on regional linkages. The entire Northern Hemisphere was examined, rather than distinct zones.

And sorry for the off-topic.
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numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #461 on: December 14, 2017, 06:57:32 PM »
Quote
the Arctic environmental system has reached a 'new normal'
I sincerely doubt if anyone will step forward and admit to having writing that grossly misleading sentence but the implication -- that some sort of new 'equilibrium state' or pause in Arctic Amplification has set in -- is dead wrong.

The downward trend that continued in 2017 -- with record-setting delays in freeze-over in the western portal (Chukchi) --  is the exact opposite of the meaning of steady state in the physical sciences.

The quote you're replying to doesn't claim there's an equilibrium state or a pause -- quite the opposite.

The normal thing to expect in the Arctic now is that it's warming fast and sea ice is trending down fast.

gerontocrat

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #462 on: December 15, 2017, 10:36:28 AM »
In my view, the climate is undergoing unprecedented and largely unpredicted rapid change already, though very unevenly depending on location, eg the western coast of North America is hyper-sensitive to changes in the adjacent Pacific whereas as other areas might plod along at a barely noticeable 2ºC-by-2100.

For this reason, model papers that build on Old Arctic conditions should be rejected at the time of peer-review. It's not at all uncommon to read a December 2017 paper only to discover in the fine print that it assumes an entirely pre-2014 foundation.

Whoa ... a whole lot has happened since then, even with a discount for natural variation. Why wasn't that change in baseline conditions incorporated? A four year delay is unacceptable, long beyond the shelf life of utilizability. Only an eight of that is attributable to journal review.

I follow near-real and annual changes quite closely and have provided several thousand time series so that carefully sourced current data is readily available to even the laziest scientist on the planet. So what's the excuse for all the dilatory papers?

The Arctic is changing too fast for the modeling community to keep up.

Some months ago I had a look at the timeline for CMIP6 and IPCC AR6 and did wonder about timings.

The IPCC is currently in its Sixth Assessment cycle. During this cycle, the Panel will produce three Special Reports, a Methodology Report on national greenhouse gas inventories and the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
 
"The 43rd Session of the IPCC held in April 2016 agreed that the AR6 Synthesis Report would be finalized in 2022 in time for the first UNFCCC global stocktake when countries will review progress towards their goal of keeping global warming to well below 2 °C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C. The three Working Group contributions to AR6 will be finalized in 2021."

So reports finalised in 2021 / 2022.

The timeline for the modelling and associated science is somewhat different. See image below. Will new data from 2018, 2019, 2020 data even get considered?
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numerobis

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #463 on: December 15, 2017, 04:04:44 PM »
957 hPa off Labrador. Up goes the temperature! The high was -8 C last night, whereas a normal high is about -19 C (and occurs during the day).

It's rolling around for the next couple days before dissipating on Sunday. Then there'll be a week of normal temperatures.

As I mentioned, Frobisher Bay froze over this week. Snow is starting to pile on top of the ice; there's only a few open leads left. I'm assuming the holiday festivities will be able to get out on the ice, but we were within a week or so of needing to cancel some of the events.

(Wish my pilot luck on landing here to pick us up for the holidays!)

Daniel B.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #464 on: December 15, 2017, 06:16:59 PM »
Quote
the Arctic environmental system has reached a 'new normal'
I sincerely doubt if anyone will step forward and admit to having writing that grossly misleading sentence but the implication -- that some sort of new 'equilibrium state' or pause in Arctic Amplification has set in -- is dead wrong.

The downward trend that continued in 2017 -- with record-setting delays in freeze-over in the western portal (Chukchi) --  is the exact opposite of the meaning of steady state in the physical sciences.

The term "new normal," is somewhat nebulous, and not well defined by NOAA.  It could refer to the observations of either declining sea ice maxima or plateauing sea ice minima.  Their report mentions both warming winter temperatures and cooling summer temps.
The quote you're replying to doesn't claim there's an equilibrium state or a pause -- quite the opposite.

The normal thing to expect in the Arctic now is that it's warming fast and sea ice is trending down fast.

GeoffBeacon

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #465 on: December 15, 2017, 07:32:45 PM »
geronocrat
Quote
So reports [for AR6?] finalised in 2021 / 2022.

The timeline for the modelling and associated science is somewhat different. See image below. Will new data from 2018, 2019, 2020 data even get considered?

Does that mean a 2 to 5 year lag between data and reports?

What happened in AR5?
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gerontocrat

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #466 on: December 15, 2017, 07:46:01 PM »
geronocrat
Does that mean a 2 to 5 year lag between data and reports?

What happened in AR5?

I do not know, but the answer is likely to be yes - both for AR5 & AR6. They do not seem to be geared up for the speed of climate change and development of new data sources. Perrhaps A-Team knows more.
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #467 on: December 16, 2017, 11:39:38 AM »
A-Team thank you for summarizing everything so bluntly. Sometimes it's easy to forget the big picture.

Jim Hunt

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #468 on: December 16, 2017, 02:18:31 PM »
And sorry for the off-topic.

Actually it rather reinforces A-Team's point. E.g.

"Record low sea-ice concentration in the central Arctic during summer 2010"

Zhao, J., Barber, D., Zhang, S. et al. Adv. Atmos. Sci. (2018) 35: 106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-017-7066-6
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #469 on: December 17, 2017, 01:02:34 AM »
geronocrat
Quote
So reports [for AR6?] finalised in 2021 / 2022.

The timeline for the modelling and associated science is somewhat different. See image below. Will new data from 2018, 2019, 2020 data even get considered?

Does that mean a 2 to 5 year lag between data and reports?

What happened in AR5?

Actually I'm afraid it means a 7-10 year lag between data and IPCC reports. They are constrained to base their reports only on data presented in peer reviewed papers. The time required for funding proposals, the study, the write up, the peer review rarely comes in under 7-10 years.
And to pass peer review the politics require you to only quote data and other studies that have been peer reviewed also. Or the old crusties will knife it because its conflicting with the out of date science they contributed to. Such is how politics holds back science in the world we have to bear.
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #470 on: December 17, 2017, 02:04:23 AM »
While 2017-18 recorded the second earliest appearance of ice on the Great Lakes, it has now fallen to the 6th highest ice coverage for the date (5.2% on 2017-12-16) in the 46 year record (xls).

Top 10 seasons with the highest ice cover on Dec 16: (mean 2.1%, median 0.4%)
1. 1976-77 - 17.5%
2. 2013-14 - 12.3%
3. 1995-96 - 6.9%
4. 1985-86 - 6.5%
5. 2010-11 - 5.9%
6. 2017-18 - 5.2%
7. 2000-01 - 4.9%
8. 2005-06 - 4.6%
9. 1989-90 - 4.3%
10. 2008-09 - 4.2%
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 02:14:54 AM by Brigantine »

jai mitchell

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #471 on: December 17, 2017, 06:55:54 AM »
geronocrat
Quote
So reports [for AR6?] finalised in 2021 / 2022.

The timeline for the modelling and associated science is somewhat different. See image below. Will new data from 2018, 2019, 2020 data even get considered?

Does that mean a 2 to 5 year lag between data and reports?

What happened in AR5?

As I recall the Cutoff date was December '12 with publication in November 13.  However most of the papers cited were more than a few years old with the period of data often collected and synthesized into a paper within a year.  So I would guess average 'new' paper addition was 2010 or so with the 'new' data from 2008-2009.  However, we must remember that the communication of the ARs takes years to get into policy (or even the public awareness).  We are literally working on documents that still rely on TAR and AR4.
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #472 on: December 18, 2017, 02:35:32 AM »
GFS is showing strong Lows on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides that will efficiently transport heat into the Arctic on both sides:

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/12/19/0000Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-90.25,84.42,693/loc=170.609,59.266
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/12/19/0000Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-90.25,84.42,693/loc=170.609,59.266

This pattern should persist several days and looks to continue to stall the unprecedentedly slow refreeze in the Chukchi Sea. It appears to be a repeat of the synoptics from last week that stalled extent, and it appears that similar dual LP systems may phase in over Christmas as well.

On the Pacific side, it looks like the ridiculously resilient ridge that's keeping California in Red Flag conditions is forcing the LP waves in the pacific to divert northward into the Arctic. CFS forecasts the Bering straight to be anomalously warm throughout the rest of the freezing season: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/htmls/glbT2me1Sea.html
« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 09:56:41 AM by aperson »
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #473 on: December 18, 2017, 09:37:04 PM »
Yes, the sun is going to turn back to the north and the Chukchi sea still has not experienced the real coldness. If the spring and June will be snowy one can keep calm, otherwise things could get to the new record lows

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #474 on: December 18, 2017, 11:41:43 PM »
Thanks Pavel.......looks like there is a spot near the Arctic coast of Alaska that is approaching 30 degrees C above normal

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #475 on: December 19, 2017, 12:12:14 AM »
For those interested in sea ice age I've just stumbled across a new paper by Pierre Rampal et al. on The Cryosphere Discuss:

"A new tracking algorithm for sea ice age distribution estimation"

Quote
It is the purpose of the present paper to describe a method and a derived dataset that allow us to shed more light on the development of the age distribution of the Arctic sea ice. For this purpose, we have taken advantage of some new datasets on sea ice drift and concentration developed and distributed by the EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF). In addition, we have developed a new Eulerian scheme of advection supported by the Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative (SICCI) project of the European Space Agency (ESA). These improvements have allowed us to produce a new sea ice age dataset which in each grid box contains not only the age of the oldest ice, but the actual age distribution provided as fractions of ice of different age categories (hereafter refered to as sea ice age fractions). The dataset will be presented and compared with earlier attempts to map Arctic sea ice age as well as with the standard products for sea ice type classification from scatterometer and microwave radiometer observations.

Note that these maps are all for the same date - January 1st 2016
« Last Edit: December 19, 2017, 02:02:05 PM by Jim Hunt »
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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #476 on: December 19, 2017, 10:56:09 AM »
The profession of 'Sea ice age calculator' is going to be a dying trade when the answer is never more than one!

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #477 on: December 20, 2017, 04:18:43 PM »
""In an accompanying annual report on the Arctic’s health — titled “Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably frozen region of recent past decades” — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees all official U.S. research in the region, coined a term: “New Arctic.”""

http://grist.org/article/let-it-go-the-arctic-will-never-be-frozen-again/
« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 04:24:03 PM by Thomas Barlow »

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #478 on: December 21, 2017, 01:47:13 AM »
Just to remind everyone, while present monthly Arctic sea ice Volume losses compared to 1980 decade average, vary  from ~ 9000 cubic kilometers to 10,500+ cubic kilometers:
For 390+ STRAIGHT months, global temperatures have been over the 20th century..... despite the  Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) being languid for many decades AND low for 11 years (including a 3+ year period, when TSI set a 100 year record low). The energy needed to melt 9000 to 10,500 cubic kilometers of ice is 25-35 times the annual U.S. energy consumption.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #479 on: December 21, 2017, 09:21:55 AM »
Yes, the sun is going to turn back to the north and the Chukchi sea still has not experienced the real coldness. If the spring and June will be snowy one can keep calm, otherwise things could get to the new record lows

Yes the PV just collapsed overnight into a 1 core- System over Siberia


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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #480 on: December 21, 2017, 07:15:28 PM »
Winter Solstice.
Lincoln Sea still broken up, ice still flowing south through Nares.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #481 on: December 22, 2017, 04:43:31 AM »
The CAA is wearing corduroy!

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #482 on: December 22, 2017, 06:04:28 AM »
Now without the corduroy, the last 10 days, contrast enhanced of Nares mouth & Lincoln Sea.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #483 on: December 22, 2017, 07:45:54 AM »
Great animation, thank you Ice Shieldz.
It will probably freeze over by February.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #484 on: December 22, 2017, 01:38:40 PM »
Looks like the polar vortex is going to blow some cold wind across the US. If i'm right that's because the jet stream is weak. But i have no idea about the scale of that cold burst. For example, can it have an impact on how much ice we get on the arctic this year ? Or is it to small for that ? Because normaly that jet stream keeps that cold weather above the arctic. And if i'm right that jet stream is behaving more unstable the last years. Is there any consensus why it is more unstable ?

Thomas Barlow

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #485 on: December 22, 2017, 03:36:17 PM »
Great animation, thank you Ice Shieldz.
It will probably freeze over by February.
There might need to be a thread to take bets on that.  :)

Thomas Barlow

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #486 on: December 22, 2017, 03:38:44 PM »
Now without the corduroy, the last 10 days, contrast enhanced of Nares mouth & Lincoln Sea.
Awesome!
One of those on the 1st of every month could be great.  :)

aperson

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #487 on: December 23, 2017, 04:44:13 AM »
It looks like Chukchi Sea / Bering Strait may see some cold temperatures reach it in the near future, but the source is pretty unusual. GFS has been showing a divergence zone setting up over the Arctic around Christmas for a while now and it looks like it will probably verify. This appears to be due to upper level transport from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

I'm not sure how unusual this pattern is, but I haven't encountered it before and perusing previous freezing season didn't show any immediate correlates. It seems like it will create a scenario that supports a large amount of export on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides even if it does transport more cold air from the Canadian and Siberian sides. I also note that the Siberian and Canadian sides are essentially stratified in this setup.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/12/26/0300Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-69.42,72.50,288/loc=156.152,81.878
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/12/26/0300Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-69.42,72.50,288/loc=156.152,81.878
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Daniel B.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #488 on: December 23, 2017, 02:57:10 PM »
Looks like the polar vortex is going to blow some cold wind across the US. If i'm right that's because the jet stream is weak. But i have no idea about the scale of that cold burst. For example, can it have an impact on how much ice we get on the arctic this year ? Or is it to small for that ? Because normaly that jet stream keeps that cold weather above the arctic. And if i'm right that jet stream is behaving more unstable the last years. Is there any consensus why it is more unstable ?

Perhaps the 2013 and 2014 years may give some insight.  They were characterized by similar occurrences.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #489 on: December 23, 2017, 05:45:03 PM »
Looks like the polar vortex is going to blow some cold wind across the US. If i'm right that's because the jet stream is weak. But i have no idea about the scale of that cold burst. For example, can it have an impact on how much ice we get on the arctic this year ? Or is it to small for that ? Because normaly that jet stream keeps that cold weather above the arctic. And if i'm right that jet stream is behaving more unstable the last years. Is there any consensus why it is more unstable ?

Perhaps the 2013 and 2014 years may give some insight.  They were characterized by similar occurrences.

I can't speak to the consequences of the coming North American arctic blast for the arctic, but in my part of the US (Wisconsin), the forecast cold is less intense than the coldest we expect, on average, in a given year, and cold of the forecast intensity and duration usually occurs a few times in any given winter, so there is not much that is exceptional about it.

Alexander555

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #490 on: December 23, 2017, 09:11:22 PM »
Yes, the sun is going to turn back to the north and the Chukchi sea still has not experienced the real coldness. If the spring and June will be snowy one can keep calm, otherwise things could get to the new record lows

Where do you think that heat comes from ? Because that's a big difference , 20 to 25 degree more than normal. I have no idea if it's related. But i do remember we had a heatwave in the south of Europa and the north of Africa not that long ago. It was a pretty late heatwave.  Maybe that extra heat is moving into the arctic, creating a vortex-shot for the US and China.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2017, 09:23:41 PM by Alexander555 »

aperson

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #491 on: December 23, 2017, 09:36:24 PM »
Where do you think that heat comes from ? Because that's a big difference , 20 to 25 degree more than normal. I have no idea if it's related. But i do remember we had a heatwave in the south of Europa and the north of Africa not that long ago. It was a pretty late heatwave.  Maybe that extra heat is moving into the arctic, creating a vortex-shot for the US and China.

Synoptics are transporting a large amount of warm moist air from the ITCZ up to the Bering Strait. It's easy to see when looking at total precipitable water content: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-164.89,21.69,360/loc=-138.903,28.840

Essentially, the same ridging that is keeping California dry is sending this atmospheric river up to the Arctic instead. However, it should be getting cut off over the next day: https://i.imgur.com/H98cphq.gif but in the meantime it will bring cloud cover and precipitation (including a good deal of rain) around the Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea

Jet stream transport at the upper troposphere is also holding onto its Pacific -> Atlantic pattern. Model soundings show an upper level temperature inversion which indicates a large amount of heat transport occurring from the Pacific side up to the Arctic (and even over to the Atlantic side) in the upper troposphere (second attachment).

« Last Edit: December 23, 2017, 10:36:43 PM by aperson »
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aperson

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #492 on: December 24, 2017, 04:06:49 AM »
The following two references attribute these warm air intrusions to MJO phase 7 warming in tandem with Maritime Continent convection. Note that the effects of this transport are positively correlated with Zonal Available Potential Energy which is maximal during Arctic night (see: http://jasoncordeira.weebly.com/atmospheric-energy.html)

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JAS-D-16-0033.1
Title: An Investigation of the Presence of Atmospheric Rivers over the North Pacific during Planetary-Scale Wave Life Cycles and Their Role in Arctic Warming

Extract: During the planetary-scale wave life cycle, synoptic-scale waves are diverted northward over the central North Pacific. The warm conveyor belts associated with the synoptic-scale waves channel moisture from the subtropics into atmospheric rivers that ascend as they move poleward and penetrate into the Arctic near the Bering Strait. At this time, the synoptic-scale waves undergo cyclonic Rossby wave breaking, which further amplifies the planetary-scale waves. The planetary-scale wave life cycle ceases as ridging over Alaska retrogrades westward. The ridging blocks additional moisture transport into the Arctic. However, sensible and latent heat amounts remain elevated over the Arctic, which enhances downward infrared radiation and maintains warm surface temperatures.


http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0502.1
Title: The Influence of the Madden–Julian Oscillation on Northern Hemisphere Winter Blocking

Extract: Utilizing a two-dimensional blocking index, composites of North Pacific, North Atlantic, and European blocking are generated relative to MJO phase. In the west and central Pacific, all MJO phases demonstrate significant changes in blocking, particularly at high latitudes. A significant decrease in east Pacific and Atlantic blocking occurs following phase 3 of the MJO, characterized by enhanced convection over the tropical East Indian Ocean and suppressed convection in the west Pacific. The opposite-signed MJO heating during phase 7 is followed by a significant increase in east Pacific and Atlantic blocking.


The first paper provides December 1, 2007 as an analogue that induced Pacific side warming. I believe the warming event occurring today is similar due to a similar synoptic setup. In particular, they are similar in terms of MJO phase and strength and effect on the Bering Strait. The effect in 2017 seems less pronounced alongside a weaker phase 7 MJO. MJO phase diagram and T2m anomalies are attached for each event. 500mb height anomalies and 65N model soundings are also similar, however I have not included these.
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Hyperion

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #493 on: December 24, 2017, 04:48:06 AM »
The recently persistent windflow in through Bering seems to have been effective in keeping the shallow continental shelf area well mixed.
Today for example Nullschool is showing waves over 2.3m pounding the Chuchki ice from the south. Whilst despite warm influx waters from the north Pacific, helped in no small part by recent persistent southward winds on the Atlantic side no doubt, we have negative SSTAs in the Chuchki suggesting higher than normal salinity.

The whole Pacific sea temperatures situation is unprecedentedly whacko in fact, with SSTAs off northern Japan and in the south Tasman Reaching +5 degrees C and a belt of water halfway across the Pacific at the Equator from sth America of cooler SST than 40deg nth or sth latitude in the western Pacific. 
« Last Edit: December 24, 2017, 05:04:03 AM by Hyperion »
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Alexander555

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #494 on: December 24, 2017, 09:55:24 AM »
Starts to look like winter.

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #495 on: December 24, 2017, 01:23:43 PM »
Canada and the USA are certainly being clobbered with really freezing weather - but look at the Arctic, a different story.
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Dharma Rupa

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #496 on: December 24, 2017, 02:59:39 PM »
Canada and the USA are certainly being clobbered with really freezing weather - but look at the Arctic, a different story.

WACC-y weather.

Thomas Barlow

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #497 on: December 24, 2017, 11:51:39 PM »
No biggie, but it appears that sea-ice extent is the 2nd lowest on record for this date (with 2016 the lowest. 2010 close)

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

aperson

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #498 on: December 25, 2017, 12:56:12 AM »
Canada and the USA are certainly being clobbered with really freezing weather - but look at the Arctic, a different story.

WACC-y weather.

Yeah, I think some of the puzzle pieces are coming together for me on this. Pronounced MJO Phase 7 results in WPAC blocking and subsequent pacific -> atlantic heat and moisture transport across the Arctic. Pronounced MJO Phase 3 results in Atlantic blocking and subsequent atlantic -> pacific heat and moisture transport across the Arctic. Each of these stratify air parcels so that the Siberian and Canadian sides don't mix. This results in tropical air transport across the arctic while the cold pools on each side are forced to move to midlatitudes instead of into the Arctic.
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Alexander555

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Re: The 2017/2018 freezing season
« Reply #499 on: December 25, 2017, 09:35:27 AM »
Great animation, thank you Ice Shieldz.
It will probably freeze over by February.
There might need to be a thread to take bets on that.  :)


That sounds like a good idea. Many things you can put a bet on. It can generate extra money for research. And it sounds like fun. If you look at the pic below, the jet stream is related to it, some accumulation of heat, if you can give these things a source, so that you can monitor it. Than we could make a bet on how far and where it will push the cold out of the arctic. And maybe a good way to get more peope involved in what is happening to our planet.