The 2018 melting season

[A-Team]

On contrast manipulation of WorldView "corrected reflectance (true color)" images, making a linear adjustment of brightness (slanted straight line in histogram) does not introduce blueing artifacts because it applies equally to the red, green and blue channels.

The images as they come arrive are making very little use of the color space, it is off-white on white. These satellites circle the globe, corrections are made consistently which somewhat disfavors the cryosphere.

The first slide shows some frames from Oren's 34-day gif with blueing already apparent at weekly offsets even before contrast adjustment, the second slide shows a modest linear contrast change, and the third adds an adaptive contrast change (which sharpens the image at the expense of color balance).

However, it is also easy to overdo it with image manipulation. While this can draw out information latent in the image, it can also introduce distortion and mislead viewers not that familiar with false color processing.

SP back at #1043 shows ESRL melt ponding distribution consistent with WorldView but more quantitatively. We need to go back through their archive from May 1st on to see what has been going on as it seems to be showing the Chukchi-Beaufort melt event that obliterated Ascat and Jaxa floe resolution in this region.

ESRL is a mix of model and daily satellite inputs. The melt pond netCDF files and the new version of Panoply, free viewer/animation maker, are linked below. REB2_plots.2018-06-05.tar.gz has the ESRL portal page animations; arctic15 has the melt pond forecast; RASM-ESRL_4UAF_ICE_2018-05-25.nc has ice and snow thickness.

ftp://ftp1.esrl.noaa.gov/RASM-ESRL/ModelOutput
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/download/

[jdallen]

Yep latest GFS initializes at 959!

Helloooo GAC2018...

[Aluminium]

Another cyclone in a similar place. Winds are slightly weaker. Air above Laptev is getting even warmer.

[Greenbelt]

[Buddy]

This is a peek at the June 11th forecast heat anomaly.  For the entire 10 day period..... the central Russian coast.... is toast.  And for about half of that period.... the entire central and eastern Russian coast along the Arctic is toasty.

Not a pretty picture for ice melt ..... especially when you have an "early hole" in the ice already in the Kara.

[Hyperion]

Temps in Tiksi, on the Laptev shore, have shot up in the last three days. This is brutal heat.

You are not wrong. And the rain over the ice is widespread. Heaviest falls have been sustained and prolonged over the arctics largest river, not far inshore. So a warm flood will arrive at the coast within a day. And there will probably be a "brown Sea effect" with the soggy ground recycling the h2o as vapour uplifted by the hot strong winds to fuel the cyclone. Would not be surprised if this thing goes troppo and eyewallz up tomorrow.
Further down the pipeline,  pataphorically speaking, the Atlantic Krakens blowing hot steamy breaths in quick succession, determined to drown Nevens arid climate herbages, and sending vast amounts of food via euro rail to keep his progeny in the Siberian gulags well fed into the foreseeable future.

[oren]

Thank you A-Team, your image processing abilities are as always amazing.

[Hyperion]

This is a peek at the June 11th forecast heat anomaly.  For the entire 10 day period..... the central Russian coast.... is toast.  And for about half of that period.... the entire central and eastern Russian coast along the Arctic is toasty.

Not a pretty picture for ice melt ..... especially when you have an "early hole" in the ice already in the Kara.

That looks like the effects of the dreaded dual dipole demon (DDDD) mentioned earlier.  Heat also being dragged in off Canada, and the cold spilling out over Alaska and western Europe.

[Hyperion]

Pity this is masked off. But waves near six metres heading south out of the pack!!!

[thejazzmarauder]

Temps in Tiksi, on the Laptev shore, have shot up in the last three days. This is brutal heat.

Further down the pipeline,  pataphorically speaking, the Atlantic Krakens blowing hot steamy breaths in quick succession, determined to drown Nevens arid climate herbages, and sending vast amounts of food via euro rail to keep his progeny in the Siberian gulags well fed into the foreseeable future.

What

[Tetra]

Temps in Tiksi, on the Laptev shore, have shot up in the last three days. This is brutal heat.

Further down the pipeline,  pataphorically speaking, the Atlantic Krakens blowing hot steamy breaths in quick succession, determined to drown Nevens arid climate herbages, and sending vast amounts of food via euro rail to keep his progeny in the Siberian gulags well fed into the foreseeable future.

What

 

I can only make this face?

Double what?

Is he implying that the ice will disappear and severely disaffect the country Neven lives in, leading to his descendants being sent to a Siberian Gulag for their survival?

That’s my reading.

To make this on topic, I’ll just say that it seems the storm is setting up for a larger than average June cliff. Hope the garlic press doesn’t open.

Edit: I have more posts than the guy above, yet I’m still being moderated?

[Grubbegrabben]

Temps in Tiksi, on the Laptev shore, have shot up in the last three days. This is brutal heat.

Further down the pipeline,  pataphorically speaking, the Atlantic Krakens blowing hot steamy breaths in quick succession, determined to drown Nevens arid climate herbages, and sending vast amounts of food via euro rail to keep his progeny in the Siberian gulags well fed into the foreseeable future.

What

I consulted my local Shaman for a translation. What he said is "Atlantic warm moist air is blowing into the arctic while the euro trail feeds warmth into north Siberia. And Neven has the best herbal teas in town". Close enough for me 

(Also I assume"pataphorically" should be"metaphorically")

Edit: Apparently pataphorically is actually a word. You learn something new every day.

[Neven]

Edit: I have more posts than the guy above, yet I’m still being moderated?

I've looked at your posts so far, and remember not being sure last year whether you were concern trolling or not. If you're not, I'm happy to release your profile. 

[ArcticMelt1]

According ice extent in the Central Basin, June 2018 it stably comes first, with a big gap from the rest of the years since 2006.

[gregcharles]

Edit: Apparently pataphorically is actually a word. You learn something new every day.

I've seen the prefix "pata-" replace "meta-" once before, in the Beatles' song, Maxwell's Silver Hammer. "Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical science in the home ..."  It seems like a more intense form of metaphysics and, at least according to Paul McCartney, involves late nights alone with a test tube, and eventually being murdered by an insane medical student. I assume pataphorical is similar.

[Neven]

EC 18z has the storm now at 966 hPa. That's lower than the 2016 August storm which bottomed out at 968 hPa, but not yet as low as GAC-2012's 963 hPa. This storm is a flash in the pan compared to the other big storms we've seen over the years, but then again, it's the first week of June, not August.

[Archimid]

An event like this in September it might have the effect of giving the ice a good stir as preparation for Equinox. In June it will give it a stir but the sun will be hammering the ice for 2 more months.   

[aperson]

I think this storm will end up being more than a flash in the pan, some of the main features I'm noticing from it:

- Increased Fram export
- Rapid blueing of ice around the cyclone
- Floes near the cyclone decreasing in surface area
- Substantial rain in different regions of the Arctic for the next week
- Transport of ice into areas along the Alaskan coast with high SSTs

This is compounded by recent runs essentially showing the cyclone zip back across the Arctic in reverse once it runs into a large 5H block near Alaska.

[Hyperion]

Edit: Apparently pataphorically is actually a word. You learn something new every day.

I've seen the prefix "pata-" replace "meta-" once before, in the Beatles' song, Maxwell's Silver Hammer. "Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical science in the home ..."  It seems like a more intense form of metaphysics and, at least according to Paul McCartney, involves late nights alone with a test tube, and eventually being murdered by an insane medical student. I assume pataphorical is similar.

Aye laddie a pataphor is a parallel universe brought into existence by the use of a metaphor. Sort of a metaphor squared. Earlier I referred to the north Atlantic one a day cyclone cannon that's recently fired up as the Atlantic Kraken waking from his slumber and throwing one dripping fisted tentacle a day at the north. Now he's drowning Nevens dry climate vegetables and sending food parcels of heat and moisture by eurorail to his earlier cyclone spawn in sibera to keep them from starvation. Here's 2017 and 2018 total precipitable water charts for today for comparison.

[Hyperion]

Though the ocean heat and currents are telling the real story of how different things are from last year. Peak Gulfstream speed is up again from last week, well ahead of last year and its path further north. 2018 above, 2017 below.

[Michael Hauber]

Should the current cyclone be compared to the GAC?  Or to cyclones that occur in the north Atlantic or north Pacific.  Cyclones outside the arctic can get a lot stronger than the GAC, for instance Bering Sea cyclone at 943hp, with a note that cyclones reach below 930hp one or twice a year.  Or an Atlantic Cyclone that managed to reach 914 hp.

Impacts?

Will make a mess of the Atlantic front, but much of this is doomed ice anyway.  Perhaps it will accelerate warm water from the Atlantic into the Arctic, but I don't have a good handle on that current.  Lots of upwelling on the Atlantic/Arctic boundary.  Will that warm or cool the surface?  Upwelling = warming in the Arctic proper, but cooling in most of the Atlantic.  Where is the boundary between these two opposing trends?  Longer term the cyclone seems to hang around as a weaker system and looks to me like it will help to cool things down in the central/Canadian parts of the Arctic.

More concern to me is moderate high pressure ridge setting up in the Pacific sector, and the strong import of warm air between the ridge and this low.  I see strong sunshine and surface melting kicking off from Laptev to Chukchi/Beaufort.

[Pagophilus]

Distinctly blue coastal (?fast) sea ice for about 300-400 km either side of the Lena River delta in the Laptev Sea.  Image from June 6.   Unaltered corrected reflectance (true color) image from Worldview. 

[aperson]

Rapid melt at the Gusinaya River delta in the East Siberian Sea.

[Nikita]

29 degrees near the Lena River delta.

[Pagophilus]

Update on the Lapteve.   A very clear view of the Laptev and adjacent areas of Siberia on Worldview today, June 8.  Much of the sea ice in southern Laptev is now a delicate shade of baby-blue (clouds partly obscure the eastern edge, so it could be even worse than it seems).  The gap in the Laptev is now even bigger, up to 200 km wide.  The ice north of the gap also has a bluish tinge, to my eye.

The anomalously hot area of Siberia is evident in the first image from its mostly snow-free (and currently cloud free) condition.  Nullschool predicts warm southerly winds from this area over the next five days, sweeping continuously over the Laptev and on into the CAB.  And virtually none of this shows up as a drop in extent yet, because the gap is internal to the icecap.

All images are unaltered, corrected reflectance (true color).       

[lanevn]

So this year we have heatwaves, rains, near solstice date, all ice enemies united.... but sea ice area decline stalled again. Something wrong with this world, or with data.

[RikW]

Or we are quickly heading to an enormous cliff. Partial melted out areas don't show up that easily on the charts, especially is there is lots of dispersion going on.

Weaker ice is easier dispersed I guess, since it will probably be more mobile. And it doens't matter if the ocean has a lot if ice that is 200cm thick or 20cm thick, it still is 100% ice-covered. Till it goes *poof*.

Which I fear is something we will see happening

[oren]

Remember, while we we have heatwaves and rain in one part, other parts may be just normal. The data is fine. Inner arctic basin extent is the lowest on "record" (at least since 2012), while inner basin area is actually not in record, which means that the explanation of open water not counting in extent numbers is actually wrong, especially for UH data which is on a tight 3.125km grid. Graphs thanks to Wipneus, click to enlarge.

[VeliAlbertKallio]

First Image: Although without my analytical tools, the cloud masked open sea water on Laptev Sea approximates the area I have drawn in blue line (clouds are not fully opaque).

Second Image: A brief look at the temperature charts for Wednesday at higher resolution shows areas also over ice at over +10C (patches of yellow hues in two areas). This suggest me a melting rate of some 15 cm per day in a sunny weather. Fournier Triangulation (averaging) has smoothened out and reduced the size of yellow patches in the sea of green in image processing.

Thanks for all condolences received due to our recent fatal accident at our 100ft research vessel R/V Urraca where our expedition photographer fell to her death recently. We have been utterly devastated for a fatal accident relating to our operation of oceanographic research vessel "Urraca" that  claimed the life of Lauren McEntire Spence. It appears that Lauren tripped on the deck of the boat then felling into the sea and hitting her head hard. Her fall was observed but her falling unconscious while falling contributed to her drowning injuries. She was quickly recovered but died from her injuries and a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) lung infection. Lauren was married to Dr. Edward Lee Spence, the current President of Sea Research Society. Marine operations are always hazardous and one could never expect such a premature death for our expedition photographer Lauren who was in her best years.   This is our second crew loss incident we have had in 45 years of operations since 1973. (R/V Urraca was previously operated by the Smithsonian Institution before its transfer to Sea Research Society operations.)
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/irmo-sc/rebecca-lauren-spence-7852633

[F.Tnioli]

EC 18z has the storm now at 966 hPa. That's lower than the 2016 August storm which bottomed out at 968 hPa, but not yet as low as GAC-2012's 963 hPa. This storm is a flash in the pan compared to the other big storms we've seen over the years, but then again, it's the first week of June, not August.

2nd week as of now, and yes, it is. I'm curious about whether you'd think that consequences of the event would be any significant factor in increasing likelyhood of similar events later on during this melting season; i do. If you don't, then i'd be most curious to know about any argumentation for it. As for mine, it boils down to most basic things like more evaporation in Arctic after this GAC = stronger similar events further on, as moisture tends to do that; but, ofc, clouds - never sure...

[Davidsf]

Veli, I am so sorry to learn of Lauren Spence's death. What a loss. My sincere condolences to her husband and to everyone involved in the research.

David Smith-Ferri

[Hyperion]

We have two more kraken spawn waiting in the dressing room for their cue to go on stage. They are assisting already to cog in moisture from Europe which is stupendous with flooding widespread from it traversing. As long as the high speed train from 45n to the pole is in placeup at 250hPa these systems are being shepherded in on the same train track. Many of them are maintaining circulation integrity at high altitude by feeding on the humidity streams coming in at elevation, even if winds are not cyclonic near surface. When they come over the area of high surface temps and soggy ground near the Russian coast they hit the nitrous and spin up good and proper. Unless this GJB relents, this a self reinforcing cascade.
Even up to 70hPa, where DDDD appears to already be lurking in preparation to pounce there is cyclonic circulation's over the Russian and pacific lows and clockwise ones over the Greenland and Siberian highs. Very deep systems that want to keep playing.

[Sciguy]

Should the current cyclone be compared to the GAC?  Or to cyclones that occur in the north Atlantic or north Pacific.  Cyclones outside the arctic can get a lot stronger than the GAC, for instance Bering Sea cyclone at 943hp, with a note that cyclones reach below 930hp one or twice a year.  Or an Atlantic Cyclone that managed to reach 914 hp.

Impacts?

According to this 2013 post at NSIDC, cyclones are pretty normal in the Arctic and are "good for the Arctic":

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/icelights/2013/08/are-arctic-cyclones-chewing-sea-ice

In the Northern Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, summer is tempestuous. “The reason we have storms in the first place is that they do a job—transferring heat and momentum poleward,” Serreze said. In the Northern Hemisphere, winters are stormier because of the temperature gradient between the Arctic, which is dark and cold, and the equatorial regions, which are sunny and warm. “But embedded within that overall pattern, what happens on a regional basis can be quite different,” Serreze said. During an Arctic summer, temperature gradients develop between the Arctic Ocean and the snow-free land, forming the Arctic frontal zone, where the land heats up strongly in contrast to the ocean along the coast. Most cyclones generate along this frontal zone and then migrate into the central Arctic Ocean. Are the storms getting stronger? “No,” Serreze said. “Most of the evidence is actually showing that the frequency of stormy months is decreasing, favoring fair weather conditions. It’s not clear why, but it’s what’s been observed lately.”

What do cyclones do to sea ice? Cyclones do three things to sea ice. They spread out ice to cover a larger area, forming space between ice floes, and increasing ice extent. They bring on cool conditions. And they cause precipitation, which even in the peak of summer is still between 40 to 50 percent in the form of snow. Storms are good for the Arctic. Snow reinforces ice by increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back into the atmosphere, helping to cool the region. When rain falls, it is near freezing; so it doesn’t melt snow like a warm rainstorm over snow banks in lower latitudes. “Statistically speaking,” Serreze said, “summers with lots of cyclones have less ice loss than summers with fewer storms. That’s pretty clear.” That’s what happened this past June. A stormy pattern slowed the rate of ice loss. “Having said that,” Serreze said, “the impacts of an individual storm may not follow that rule, and maybe importantly, the rules are starting to change.” When a storm breaks up the ice causing ice sprawl, it accelerates ice loss because the darker spaces of open ocean water, absorb more solar energy and increase melting. “If you looked at it that way,” Serreze said, “okay, I’d buy it. But that’s not the only thing that’s happening.” Stormy patterns bring on cool conditions and more precipitation, which tends to increase ice extent. However, individual cyclones may start to change the rules, putting more emphasis on ice break up as a factor in ice loss. Scientists don’t quite know yet if that is the case. Serreze warned, however, that at some point, the ice becomes so thin it doesn’t matter if there’s a storm or not. “It’s just going to melt anyhow,” he said.

So early in June, it may actually slow ice loss because the clouds decrease the solar insolation when it's starting to peak.  Late in August, when the ice is thin, it may accelerate the melting by breaking up the pack and spreading it out so that more ice is exposed to the warmer water.

[aperson]

More concern to me is moderate high pressure ridge setting up in the Pacific sector, and the strong import of warm air between the ridge and this low.  I see strong sunshine and surface melting kicking off from Laptev to Chukchi/Beaufort.

Absolutely agreed. There's an extreme amount of warm air advection in this region followed by a stagnant block that will cook the area for week(s).

Here's the entire t=-72,384 run of GFS to hammer the point home. This is going to be disastrous for Siberian permafrost and ice.

[Pagophilus]

I think the counterpoint you raise here is a useful reminder to me that I need to keep my thinking balanced.   As far as this cyclone in the Kara is concerned, we should rapidly see what net outcome applies in this case. 

According to this 2013 post at NSIDC, cyclones are pretty normal in the Arctic and are "good for the Arctic":

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/icelights/2013/08/are-arctic-cyclones-chewing-sea-ice

[Pagophilus]

This closeup of the Laptev gap (june 7, Worldview) shows what appear to be trails of melting ice that have their origin in the southern coast and some floes.  The direction of these 'stringers' from Siberian side of the ice is consistent with recent winds.  Is this interpretation correct?  And does this give any indication of rapid melt or not?

[Neven]

The cyclone de-intensified very fast, probably because there's still a lot of ice, but 966 hPa is not be sneezed at, especially not in June. Unless someone can show me that this is normal. Good luck.

[Neven]

Comment I had to approve first:

Veli, I am so sorry to learn of Lauren Spence's death. What a loss. My sincere condolences to her husband and to everyone involved in the research.

David Smith-Ferri

[oren]

This closeup of the Laptev gap (june 7, Worldview) shows what appear to be trails of melting ice that have their origin in the southern coast and some floes.  The direction of these 'stringers' from Siberian side of the ice is consistent with recent winds.  Is this interpretation correct?  And does this give any indication of rapid melt or not?

Your interpretation seems to be correct. I'm not sure if this is rapid melt or not  but I think for early June in the Laptev it's strong melt.

[Hyperion]

Relocated:

83 cm of rain at 1C to will melt 1 cm of ice

That would be a huge amount of rain anywhere (well, maybe not India during the monsoon season), much less the Arctic.  Here are some facts about the Arctic climate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic

The Arctic Basin is one of the driest parts of the Arctic. Most of the Basin receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year, qualifying it as a desert. Smaller regions of the Arctic Basin just north of Svalbard and the Taymyr Peninsula receive up to about 400 mm (16 in) per year (Serreze and Hurst 2000).

Monthly precipitation totals over most of the Arctic Basin average about 15 mm (0.59 in) from November through May, and rise to 20 to 30 mm (0.79 to 1.18 in) in July, August, and September (Serreze and Hurst 2000).

That -2000- is a long time ago ken. There's been 15mm per day ballpark falling over a. Large slowly moving region due to this cyclone for three days. And my experience of gfs is gross underestimates of precipitation.  I've seen a foot in a night when gts said 50mm
Also the heat brought down in the air entrained by the rain can be large. And largest is the latent heat of condensation at   2264.705 kJ per kg for water compared to 334kJ per kg for latent heat of fusion. We've been seeing 30 kg per square meter hitting the arctic coast at up to 50km/hr. Mostly vapour rather than cloud droplets. Over a 100km wide front that's about 50million kg per second of water vapor. Some of the energy will escape to the upper atmosphere or space or nearly 500 million kg or half a cubic km of ice per second could be melted by this. 100 million might be a conservative estimate. That's saying nothing about the action of wind and wave to bring up heat from ocean below, fragment the ice, and expose it viciously.

[Hyperion]

Here's a letter from Environmental Research Letters in 2014 discussing the climate of Svalbard, which is wetter than most of the Arctic:

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/114021/pdf

Daily amount of precipitation (measured once or twice
daily (at 0600/1800 h) and covering the previous 12/24 h
period) has been recorded continuously for multiple decades
at three manned weather stations in Spitsbergen (the largest
island on Svalbard, Stations 1–3, figure 1(a)): the small
research settlement Ny-Ålesund (population ∼30 year-round;
Norwegian Meteorological Institute, data available at http://
eklima.no), the Russian settlement of Barentsburg (population
∼435; data available at www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/
BARENCBURG/07-1973/201070.htm), and Svalbard Airport.
At all three weather stations, several heavy rainfalls were
associated with the two-week warm spell (figure 1(c),
table 1). The most striking event was recorded in Ny-Ålesund
on January 30th when 98 mm rain fell (Tmax = 4.3 °C), which
had (prior to this event) a return period of >500 years following
the Norwegian manual for calculation of probable
extreme daily precipitation values (Førland 1992),

Note that the letter refers to 98mm as being a 500 year event.  That's about 1/10th of what someone asserted fell in this cyclone in a drier part of the Arctic.

Ken you are misquoting your own quote. They said PRIOR TO THIS EVENT it was considered a 500 year occurance.
Currently the 250hpa jetflow at some 18 km altitude from the Caspian to the Beaufort is sweeping the rainbands that's over the ice over the Beaufort. Surface temp second frame. Two days ago was raining over the laptev ice. Pictured 3hr precipitation accumulation for this also 250hPa winds in this frame. About 50 mm in 24hrs at that rate. The heaviest falls have been consistent just inland from the coast where a new cyclonic centre feeding on the soggy ground and heat has been pushing a cold flow back off the pack a temperature differential of 2-3C to nearly 30C has been maintained over a few tens of km here for a couple of days. Rates of near 200 mm per 24hrs in fact.
Lastly. Look at the relative humidity. I said earlier, water vapour packs the most energy to melt ice. When its condensing directly on the ice from a warm airmass near 100% saturated then darn near all the latent heat of that condensation, and sometimes freezing too goes into heating, and melting, often delayed bottom melt.

[Yuha]

So early in June, it may actually slow ice loss because the clouds decrease the solar insolation when it's starting to peak.  Late in August, when the ice is thin, it may accelerate the melting by breaking up the pack and spreading it out so that more ice is exposed to the warmer water.

That is very true but the NSIDC post also says this:

“Having said that,” Serreze said, “the impacts of an individual storm may not follow that rule, and maybe importantly, the rules are starting to change.”

This particular storm is unusually strong but short lived and pulls in a lot of heat from Siberia.

A big factor is how much of the precipitation is rain and how much snow. The main effect of rain is not to melt ice but to melt snow or even just turn it darker. Even wet snow fall could reduce albedo. Right now, close to the maximum insolation, just a bit of darkening could be enough to create melt ponds once the sun returns.

[Frivolousz21]

Are you saying this cyclone dropped 1000mm of precip in parts of the Arctic?  No freaking way.

Also while this is a very powerful intrusion of warm air still a large part of the Canadian Arctic Basin will stay in clouds and cold weather.

The areas most affected so far is the chuchki, ess, and now laptev is being smoked.

While the models are impressive with showing the ESS/Laptev getting totally hammered. The warm intrusion the next 2-3 days gets shunted away from the central pack before another push from the Kara/Laptev region is modeled to press poleward.

But it also gets shunted away from the CAB.

The models have picked up on a massive land based WAA event + sunny ridge over the CAA in a few days.


The ridging is still kept from the Beaufort and cab.

Things can still change.

2015 proved July can almost make up for June.

But we have essentially already parted ways with record breaking mins this year by the CAB and Beaufort seeing no surface melt essentially intoid June

[Avalonian]

Firstly, apologies for no pictures/animation - I'm in China and having difficulties with uploads!

Worldview: Has anyone noticed the rapid melting in the Amundsen Gulf (western CAA) over the past couple of weeks? Large chunks break off and then rapidly diminish. Some of it is getting swept out into the Beaufort, but it's getting a lot smaller on the way. My impression is that the Beaufort ice is rapidly losing density, as well; there's a lot of ice disappearing around there at the moment.

I know, it's June, you'd expect all that... just thought it was worth mentioning.

[Pagophilus]

Hyperion, maybe I have misunderstood something, but a conservative estimate of 100 million kg of ice melting per second is approximately 0.1 cubic km of ice per second.  That in turn would be 360 cubic km per hour, and 8640 cubic km melting per day.  There are currently about 19000 cubic km of sea ice in the arctic, so this would result in almost half the arctic sea ice disappearing in one day by the mechanism of water vapor condensation alone.   

Relocated:

83 cm of rain at 1C to will melt 1 cm of ice

That would be a huge amount of rain anywhere (well, maybe not India during the monsoon season), much less the Arctic.  Here are some facts about the Arctic climate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic

The Arctic Basin is one of the driest parts of the Arctic. Most of the Basin receives less than 250 mm (9.8 in) of precipitation per year, qualifying it as a desert. Smaller regions of the Arctic Basin just north of Svalbard and the Taymyr Peninsula receive up to about 400 mm (16 in) per year (Serreze and Hurst 2000).

Monthly precipitation totals over most of the Arctic Basin average about 15 mm (0.59 in) from November through May, and rise to 20 to 30 mm (0.79 to 1.18 in) in July, August, and September (Serreze and Hurst 2000).

That -2000- is a long time ago ken. There's been 15mm per day ballpark falling over a. Large slowly moving region due to this cyclone for three days. And my experience of gfs is gross underestimates of precipitation.  I've seen a foot in a night when gts said 50mm
Also the heat brought down in the air entrained by the rain can be large. And largest is the latent heat of condensation at   2264.705 kJ per kg for water compared to 334kJ per kg for latent heat of fusion. We've been seeing 30 kg per square meter hitting the arctic coast at up to 50km/hr. Mostly vapour rather than cloud droplets. Over a 100km wide front that's about 50million kg per second of water vapor. Some of the energy will escape to the upper atmosphere or space or nearly 500 million kg or half a cubic km of ice per second could be melted by this. 100 million might be a conservative estimate. That's saying nothing about the action of wind and wave to bring up heat from ocean below, fragment the ice, and expose it viciously.

[aperson]

Lena River delta melt 2018-06-05 to 2018-06-09 (click to animate)

[Frivolousz21]

In terms of potential Regional major melt the GFS is definitely showing potentially unprecedented ice melt over the Laptev and parts of the ESS heading into late June.


The most important points:

1.  Land based Warm Air Advection connection.  The models essentially park a modulating ridge over North Eastern Siberia that will extend out over the ESS, Chuchki, and Laptev through the next 10 days.

With an area of lower pressure essentially over the Kara region.

These features will help funnel warm air from the Russian continent continuously.

This will not only bring extra heating cause of the warm land mass but continue to widen the already large area of ice free open water.

This pool of water could easily reach 10C by next week.

2.  CLEAR SKIES DAY AFTER DAY....

3.  Shallow waters... The heat will easily warm all the way to the sea bed..allowing a constant flow of heat bombarding the ice from the sides.


This says it all. It's over an area that was going to melt out anyways.  But this could be something historic in how fast it does.

[Pavel]

The Siberian side have got plenty of strong thick ice this winter, but all of this is prone to melt out like ice-cream. The cold side of Arctic is the north of Greenland and north of CAA, but the ice there is not expected to melt out until we'll get the Blue ocean at north Pole

[S.Pansa]

What's next for the Beaufort and Chukchi ?

[1] According to Navis HYCOM/CICE model - big cracking to the first & big melting to the latter.

[2] In accordance with what Friv and others have said: The RASM-ESRL predicts - Laptev & ESS will get smoked (2nd image, ice melt in the bottom left corner).

[3] The Laptev is already feeling the heat [needs a cklick to animate - not anymore]

But methinks: This might not show up immediately in the extent numbers

[ArcticMelt1]

Today in Khatanga (south-eastern part of Taimyr) at least +26С.

http://www.pogodaiklimat.ru/monitor.php?id=20891

This is the maximum temperature for the first ten days of June in Khatanga (observations from 1928). The last record is +24.8С June 5 1959 and June 8, 2018.