The 2014 Melting Season

[Shared Humanity]

Neven: to make sure that we are looking at the same thing I post this partial picture by Artische Pinguins daily maps and the pinhole I'm referring to is the tiny one in the badly painted black ring that I made...

If you look at the link of sea ice concentration maps that Neven provided.....

https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0519

...you can see this area of low concentration.

I believe this area of low concentration is due to ice movement.

[LRC1962]

In fact it looks like the ice all over parts of the Pacific side is crumbling into smaller floes.

The MYI over that region is extremely thin for its age.  Most of it is left overs from 2012 when it was crippled.

Some of that 5 year old ice isn't even 2M thick.  It can't grow enuf in winter too off set Summer loss.

So while it can be older it isn't much thicker than FYI.

It is for this reason I really think different definitions to see ice should be looked at. A combination of thickness and quality. If MYI is broken up into small chunks and only 2m thick, how in the world can it truly be considered as MYI. True it might have been around for 5+ years without melting out entirely, but it is not the same as the MYI of 30+ years ago. That was made up of massive sheets of very thick ice that did very little melting off in the summer.
And even the 20+ ft. thick stuff is so weak a wave travelling 100+ mile under the ice pack can smash it to pieces. I personally do not consider that true MYI.

[Shared Humanity]

I think the Beaufort will be the key to the 2014 melt season. If you again look at the sea ice concentration link provided by neven........

https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/concentration-maps/sic0519

.....and compare the Beaufort this year to 2013 and 2012, the Beaufort looks healthier than either of these years while the Chukchi is much worse. We know that much of the MYI migrated to the Beaufort. Will this ice be able to survive the melt season or will it at least hang on substantially through most of the melt season and serve to protect the CAB? If we see dramatic melt of this MYI early in the melt season than things could get real bad.

[Frivolousz21]

Lasts nights euro was the worst late May pattern I've ever seen.

[Csnavywx]

Yeah, both it and the GFS (and their respective ensemble runs) start going nuclear in about 4-5 days. A week of that kind of dipole pattern will put a large hole in the ESS.

[werther]

On ice quality in the Beaufort Sea...
Does it really look better, SH? I'm not so sure. More than half of the distance to the imaginary CAB-boundary looks pretty broken-up...
Last year, it remained a relatively solid plain right from the coastal stress lead. Doesn't look like that at all. Let's keep an eye on it.

[jdallen]

Concur, Werther.

On a similar note, out of curiosity, I started going through a comparison of past years at this time and 2014 using Cryosphere Today's tool:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=05&fd=16&fy=2012&sm=05&sd=16&sy=2014

As far as I can tell, this is the first time the Chukchi and Bering has been this clear this early in our historical record.

[Frivolousz21]

Good view of the ESS region today.

Remember it's May 19th.

[Neven]

I've posted the first ASI 2014 update.

[jdallen]

Bering/ Chukchi

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r06c03.2014138.terra.1km

I almost certain we've not seen it this clear this early.  It is alarming.

[F.Tnioli]

...


If El-nino actually starts this May or this June, then this year minimum extent would be somewhat affected, i guess?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I would imagine that a El Nino in June would have bigger ramifications for the ice freeze during the winter rather than the melt during the summer no?

No, you're right. That's why i said "somewhat" affected - bigger ramifications would sure be during the winter and (considering the circumstances) next melt season, too. Yet, changes in athmospheric patterns and events is big enough to worry about, too, you know.

[Neven]

It's a PITA that we can't compare (I just discovered the hard disk failure they experienced), because the Bering Sea in 2011 was pretty low too, according to the regional map and the concentration maps page. But this year it's lower, and that won't change any time soon.

[Lord M Vader]

Hello dear friends!

The discussion about ESS in earlier years made me do what jdallen already did: to look at earlier years and compare. While there were no signs of a break up this early at year there were signs of an area with low sea ice concentrations in the ESS by the end of may 2006. We should remember that the resolution of Cryosphere Today (CT) seems to be lower than Arctische Pinguins (AP) eminent pics with 3.125 km resolution. By May 17 from CT doesn't manage to show this compared to both Bremen and AP. That's why I lean to say that it's possible that the ESS may have seen an early break up in the end of may 2006. However, this years event is much more remarkable though!

Another thing that is worth to keep an eye at is the Kara Sea where the ice is very thin and there is a break up. Given that really warm air is coming from south and will continue to dig into this area with offshore winds according to GFS latest 12z run for the next week or so I don't see why Laptev Sea wouldn't experience a really large ice free area by the end of this month.. Given the resolution I think that we'll see an over estimation by the SIE of Jaxa due to this event.. ECMWF 12z run will be highly interesting to see the outcome!!

DMI show a fairly steady increase in the Arctic temps north of 80N which certainly should continue and switch to positive numbers soon. There have been discussions of how bad this season will be. I think we may get a hint from the AO. The AO have mostly been positive this year even though it will be more normal now the next days. I think we'll continue to get a summer dominated by neutral AO index. The outcome combined with the fact that the ice is somewhat thicker this year in parts of Arctic implies that this season won't end up being as bad as 2012 was. I'm still confident in my guess that this years SIE will end up somewhere in the range of 3,9-4,5 million km2...

[LRC1962]

Few things I have noted:
From these it appears to be a storm is developing near the north pole.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-165.77,77.61,922
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449
Also look at the 2 systems off the Russian coast that appear to be pumping in heat directly into the storm:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=187.67,76.67,1240
Then on the other side Look at those surface sea temps off Svalbard's (Fram Staight)  west coast. Been watching that over the last week or so and that area is getting warmer all the time.

[LRC1962]

Ocean temps:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-62.78,80.78,1536

[jdallen]

From watching things for a while, I'm not sure at this stage the SST's are as diagnostic as those above two meters; the presence of ice will buffer them significantly, and we may miss heat transfer happening which that buffering may mask.

I'm thinking wind, albedo and higher level temps (850mb?) may give us better clues.

I've been watching legerdemain passing back and forth about member processing for prediction. Part of it seems to revolve around finding some generally predictable cyclical value to provide an attractor around which anomaly ranges may be implied.

I think the best approach to be evaluating inputs of heat, and rates of transfer.  Everything else appears more derivative. I'll try to be more detailed after work.

[Neven]

The ECMWF is now seriously pointing to high pressure domination starting in a couple of days. If this comes about a large part of the sea ice pack will be bathed in sunshine, meaning lots of melt ponds could form. Very interesting.

And now for my new routine: checking the CCI Reanalyzer temp map.

[LRC1962]

JDAllen: From my limited understanding. The power of Arctic storms comes from the temp difference between what the core gets hold of and the outer winds get hold of. With solid ice the temp comes from the same souses and therefore such storms will quickly die. If the storm is able to get hold of the temp from water then the strength longevity of the storm depends on those temp differences. The question is how open is that ice under that storm. And what can also happen (as in 2012? I believe) the storm lasts long enough to create open water at its core then if it can get hold of warmer air from elsewhere it can become and far big storm that can last a long time.
Of course there are a million and one other variables that determine what actually does happen.
Just do remember that the big one I am thinking about started as small and everyone thought it was going to just disipate fast and mean nothing.

[deep octopus]

And now for my new routine: checking the CCI Reanalyzer temp map.

Agreed. This tool has become my favorite find of the year, by far.

[Frivolousz21]

The Euro doesn't just rock the arctic the next week. 

The ESS and Latpev are going to get seriously crushed as we end May.  I have no idea how fast the melt can take off in combo with the off shore/dipole flow.  But the potential is there for a whole whole lot of open water to form between the Laptev and ESS under predominantly sunny skies.

On top of that in a few days the snow cover in those areas will be decimated and surface warming will explode.  The models are already showing high temps in the 10-15C+ range along the ESS/Laptev shoreline in the medium range.


Lastly the Euro also shows major ridging forming around day 6-7 over the GIS/NA side.

It's nasty and a carbon copy of the 2007-2012 GIS -NAO regime.

[Neven]

The Euro doesn't just rock the arctic the next week. 

The ESS and Latpev are going to get seriously crushed as we end May.  I have no idea how fast the melt can take off in combo with the off shore/dipole flow.  But the potential is there for a whole whole lot of open water to form between the Laptev and ESS under predominantly sunny skies.

Yes, but there's still 2-3 days before the current cyclone dissipates, so the forecast could still change. It has been pretty steady today, though.

Agreed. This tool has become my favorite find of the year, by far.

I've been only using it since the last couple of days. Does anyone know why the last few forecasts (180 hr and 2-3 before that) all of a sudden have all the heat disappear in the US, and Eastern Europe and Africa go ablaze? I've been noticing this for the second time in a couple of days.

[seattlerocks]

And now for my new routine: checking the CCI Reanalyzer temp map

Something that bothers me of that map (the anomaly one that I assume is 2m) is that anomalies show some dependence on the hour of the day. That 1-day periodic component should be absent as is the case with most NASA and NOAA anomaly analyses. It gives me some feeling of distrust...

[jdallen]

I've been only using it since the last couple of days. Does anyone know why the last few forecasts (180 hr and 2-3 before that) all of a sudden have all the heat disappear in the US, and Eastern Europe and Africa go ablaze? I've been noticing this for the second time in a couple of days.

If you check, Neven, I think some of those temperature cycles tie back to the diurnal cycle.  That may be the case here.  I also suspect at the far end of the model, it may start losing coherence.  Anything past hour 120 or so, I take with a certain amount of skepticism.  For current and near term, I think its fantastic.

[jdallen]

And now for my new routine: checking the CCI Reanalyzer temp map

Something that bothers me of that map (the anomaly one that I assume is 2m) is that anomalies show some dependence on the hour of the day. That 1-day periodic component should be absent as is the case with most NASA and NOAA anomaly analyses. It gives me some feeling of distrust...

Check the region they're showing up.  If its dry, clear, and high (>500M) you can get pretty wild swings in temperature which may show up as alternating positive and negative anomalies due to rapid heating during the day, and radiational cooling at night.   Even outside of that, you can get pretty serious swings this time of year across most of NA.  For example, just a few days ago, they had a frost warning in southern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin.  Tomorrow, it will hit 25C in Minneapolis/St. Paul.


And of course, they may have a bug in their model

[werther]

One of the intriguing features from yesterdays’ MODIS:



This looks a lot like the splintering pattern out here June last year. Quite early in the season. A tendency to splinter up and disperse again?

[werther]

Another thing I picked up during today's routine check-up. In support of all fellow posters that have been forecasting 'torching' last days.
Wetteronline and Climate Reanalyzer both forecast the Yakutia Coast in NE Siberia to really warm up. The wave will last into June. Even Ostrov kotel'nyi could make it to +14 dC and above freezing during the 'night' (which means pretty low sun from now on during the next three months).
Summer arrives usually around the 1st of June in these parts. This year it seems to enter with a bang.

PS look at MODIS today in NE Siberia. A swirl of 'smoke' curls up from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Lena delta. Ashes from volcan Shiveluch, Kamchatka?

[helorime]

There is more rubble than your circle shows.  The area above and to the right is semi-obscured by fog, you can see it's outlines.  Without access to previous year's images it is hard to tell how unusual this is for May. 

[Frivolousz21]

The Euro has dramatically backed off from it's bad solutions.  It's still bad for the ESS and Laptev but even then it's not as bad for the ESS near as much as it was just a day ago.

I also thought way more snow would be gone by now in Eastern Siberia it's holding on very strong for so much WAA.

It's melting out way faster around the Laptev.  I guess the low elevation of the Laptev region is to blame there.


Forecasts call for above freezing temps over the Eastern half of Russia day and night going forward with even 10-15C+ high temps reaching the arctic basin starting tomorrow by Tiksi.

[Neven]

The Euro has dramatically backed off from it's bad solutions.

Indeed, the high is less dominant and comes from the Atlantic, and not from the American side. This makes a difference for wind directions, etc.

[Frivolousz21]

Yeah the MYI is protected completely.  The flow from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side is cut off except along the Russian side.

The 00z GFS shows HP trying to take over after day 5 or so.

[wili]

RS has a nice post on the heat that is moving into the Arctic:
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/arctic-heatwaves-rise-to-threaten-sea-ice-as-lake-baikal-wildfires-reignite/

Arctic Heatwaves Rise to Threaten Sea Ice

According to model forecasts, Arctic heatwaves are forming that will, throughout this coming week, bring 50-70 degree (F) temperatures to the shores of the East Siberian and Laptev Seas, the estuaries of the Kara and on through Arctic Eastern Russia to Coastal Scandinavia. These heat pulses will push a series of wedges of above-freezing temperatures across the Arctic Ocean zones of the Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev and Kara Seas to within a few hundred miles of the North Pole, creating conditions that set up the potential for a severe early-season weakening of sea ice.

They are the most recent in a long train of severe warming events arising out of a wide region of Northwest North America and Eastern Asia since at least late last fall. The heat waves have continued to ride up weaknesses in the Jet Stream and deliver warmth to the High Arctic, creating havoc for Arctic climes. During Winter, the heat pulses collapsed the Polar Vortex and sent Arctic temperature anomalies spiking to 5-6+ degrees Celsius or greater above the already hotter than normal 1979 to 2000 average even as they set off a series of heat-related weather emergencies for Alaska.

Triple Arctic Heatwaves

With the emergence of late spring, high temperature anomalies typically cool in the Arctic as polar amplification seasonally fades. However, the two Jet Stream weaknesses have continued to provide heat transport and push Arctic temperatures above normal and into ice-threatening ranges. Now, a third hot ridge, this one over Western Russia and Eastern Europe, has emerged and strengthened to provide yet one more Arctic heat delivery engine...

[Frivolousz21]

Snow cover over Eastern Siberia should melt out over the next week completely.

That will allow low level near surface temps to rapidly rise.

8 days from now while highly subject to change the GFS is showing not just off shore winds but a downslope off shore flow set up over the ESS.

The GFS is already showing high temps reaching 20C+ near the ESS shoreline.  Having such prolonged off shore winds over the ESS and Laptev regions with the heat continually rebuilding in my experience tracking the arctic is rare.

For whatever reason a weak SLP/PV anomaly wants to sit over the Beaufort region and not move.

while the ice effected on the Russian side is only FYI.  There could be some rapid and massive early season losses on this side coupled with unprecedented SST rises.

The ESS is so shallow.  I'd think it wouldn't take much once land snow cover is gone with a little bit of open water to see huge sst warming in the ESS and Laptev.

[jdallen]

Considering the uncertainty of the forecasts, what comes to mind is a contest between sumo wrestlers...  Feed backs vs increasing energy.  Cold core cyclones and cloudiness inhibiting melt on one side, the rapid landslide/onset of disappearing snow pack and astonishingly warm intrusions of hot air, melt water and oceanic heat on the other.

It doesn't seem clear to me yet who will be pushed out of the ring, but the struggle appears epic.

[Siffy]

Hmm, it seems like we are getting some what of a repeat of 2013 in some ways although the Ice pack looks quite a bit more fractured than last year and the Chukchi sea seems to have started melting out much earlier.

Going to be interesting to see the next few weeks.

[jdallen]

Hmm, it seems like we are getting some what of a repeat of 2013 in some ways although the Ice pack looks quite a bit more fractured than last year and the Chukchi sea seems to have started melting out much earlier.

Going to be interesting to see the next few weeks.

That's just the surface of it; weather has been considerably different  and different *portions* of the arctic are experiencing far different conditions.  Things I think are far more asymmetric than 2013, and thereby both less stable and less predictable.   We can place this winters weather across the Northern hemisphere in evidence as "exhibit A" for this.

[Frivolousz21]

the models continue to trend better in the short to medium range.

But they don't form a vortex or drop the -NAO

[Lord M Vader]

Interestingly, the latest GFS is building a second heat dome in Laptev Sea in about 5-6 days with the HP from the Pacific side.. Let's see how the models perform this run later!!

[Michael Hauber]

Actually I think its more like 2012.  The weather kept changing, hinting at massively favourable ice loss patterns, but never getting it fully together.  But ice extent kept dropping at near record rates until the big storm blew the record away.

I've often noticed that a factor in 2007 was the early entry of the melt front from the Pacific.  An early extention of the melt front from the Bering straight area into Beaufort and ESS gave a nice long melt front and allowed faster melting during early July.

Later in the season the attack on the ESS ice tongue is a factor.  In 2009-2011 this tongue held up well and late season melt was slower.  In 2008 and 2012 early incroads from Beaufort and Laptev tended to pinch off the tongue.  In 2008 high rates of melting were achieved late season as the tongue was pinched off and partially melted out, and in 2012 the record was beaten as a good portion of the tongue was completely isolated from the main pack and melted out, effectively giving a second melt front in the Arctic.

Also I noticed today that this is not the earliest date of significant open water in ESS area.  Cryosphere Today shows significant open water earlier than this year in this region, and the result was an extreme melt (by pre-2000 stamdards) of the ESS area by September.

[F.Tnioli]

...
The ESS is so shallow.  I'd think it wouldn't take much once land snow cover is gone with a little bit of open water to see huge sst warming in the ESS and Laptev.
...

ESS has thousands of gigatons of methane clathrates being right under its sea floor, too. And i'm not someone who agrees with that D. Archer's finely crafted paper - i mean, i don't think the upper layer of methane clathrate deposits will sit nicely frozen all the way till bottom layer would melt all the way up and through. Huge sst warming in ESS that early (1st half of June? 2nd half of June?) - means maximum insolation over open water of ESS, and i say, upper layer of methane clathrate deposits in ESS - will give out alot of methane into the athmosphere. The only question is how much.

If ESS starts to fart methane for real - Gt-scale - then it's much game-over, i recon. During 2013, Arctic sent out more than 0.1Gt of methane already, some people say. Official folks still say things like 0.017Gt or ~0.03Gt, etc. Either case, i definitely think this is something worth looking at in general, and also because of local short-term greenhouse effect of elevated methane athmospheric concentrations, which affects sea ice quite much (among other things).

[werther]

Nice interannual comparison, Michael!
meanwhile, I fiddled a bit with NCEP/NCAR temp anomaly over the 9.7 Mkm2 Arctic Basin for May until now. This year does have a firm lead in 'warming' over '12 and '13. (+1.4dC against both +0.8dC).
Remember that DMI only takes +80dNorth into account.  The Beaufort/Chukchi are the main regions for the remarkable difference  (+5dC!).
A solid basis for this year displaying that Pacific/Bering side melt front again.

[Jim Hunt]

A view of the East Siberian Sea from on high earlier today. For comparison with earlier in the year see:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/winter-201314-images/#ESS

[werther]

The first signs of in situ melt water on the fast ice are appearing in the Bhuor Kaya Gulf, extreme Southern part of the Laptev Sea:



Look for the blueish hue against the dark coast in the mid-right section of this detail (r05c05 day 142).

Through mid-tone suppression (-60) the cracked structure of the fast ice is revealed. Melting of the remaining snow cover probably enhances that effect. River water is visible on most coastlines now, where it spreads over and under the ice, promoting melt.
ECMWF has adjusted its prediction for next week, the +15dC’s have been reduced to below +10. Nevertheless spring is back to stay in these parts.

[Lord M Vader]

Just looked at the latest GFS 12z run which is very interesting!! This run favors more melting than the other ones have done earlier.. Will be very exciting to look at the EURO in two hours.. Just like the whole situation is right now it's exciting!!

ACFNS forecast looks very weird with a thickening of the ice in the quadrant north of Taimyr(!) Would be very surprised if that forecast holds the next days.. I'm expecting more melt and opening of the ESS and Laptev now.. Will be interesting to see if the heat succeeds to make a opening the whole way from Laptev to Berings strait before june 1... I expect the area in Laptev as Werther discussed to open up before june 1. The ice in the area of Svalbard is crap and my opinion is that the SIE from JAXA is somewhat overestimated due to those circumstances. Anyone who agrees with that or?

[Frivolousz21]

The Euro and GFS are worlds apart.

[Lord M Vader]

Friv: no kidding! Yes, they are and ECMWF is usually more reliable than GFS. However, high pressure systems will still give plenty of sun so we'll possibly see some melt but the CAA will likely be well protected and I'm rather confident that if there are no dramatic swings in the weather the Northwest passage will be closed this year too.. The AO will remain fairly neutral for the next 10 days or so and that's what I think will be significant for this melt season: mainly neutral conditions which will give us somewhat more conducive conditions for melting than 2013 but still not as favorable as we saw in 2007 and 2012...

[Frivolousz21]

The only part where I feel confident the Euro is wrong is keeping a meridonial flow over the NATL but not keeping the -NAO ridging.

I can't buy that.

But I have no idea if the massive ridge the GFS has over the ESS is real versus the Euro having a vortex/slp there.

[Neven]

Friv: no kidding! Yes, they are and ECMWF is usually more reliable than GFS. However, high pressure systems will still give plenty of sun so we'll possibly see some melt but the CAA will likely be well protected and I'm rather confident that if there are no dramatic swings in the weather the Northwest passage will be closed this year too.. The AO will remain fairly neutral for the next 10 days or so and that's what I think will be significant for this melt season: mainly neutral conditions which will give us somewhat more conducive conditions for melting than 2013 but still not as favorable as we saw in 2007 and 2012...

I agree. This is how things currently look, presuming that this period is extremely important due to melt ponds etc.

It looked like ECMWF was becoming more steady, but it's back to fickle. A reversed Dipole would be cool though.

[Errorr]

Yay! Finally made it past the spam filter to register!

All the latest runs have the GFS outvoted past 120 hrs. The CMC, UKMET, and Euro have the low pressure settle over the Beaufort instead of migrating over the CCA. The gfs ensembles mostly agree as well.

The GFS also misses the High over the Barrents next week that the others are suggesting.

The GFS has been falling behind in accuracy over the past few years. The Euro has 10 times the computer resources still (and they get bonuses for beating GFS). The initializations are also superior. The US Navy NAVGEM even uses the UKMET data for its runs. The NOAA shortchanges their operational products budget wise to benefit the long term needs of the multi-decade climate models which have the prestige of "climate science" even though there is no shortage of supercomputers to run climate models.

In the end GFS is the most used because it is free by law evn though they have to run alot more products on their limited hardware. I can't justify a monthly fee to get the better Euro outputs from a website. The Euro charges somewhere north of 75k Euros for full data access but at least they don't have to rely on budget appropriations of a fickle congress to make sure their the best.

[AbruptSLR]

The attached image from the following link shows that warm Pacific water is beginning to flow north through the Bering Strait:

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_daily.php?plot=ssn&inv=0&t=cur

[AbruptSLR]

The attached SSTA for May 21 2014 from the following link also confirms that warm Pacific water is slowly pushing north through the Bering Strait, and provides more resolution:

http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/ophi/