The 2014 Melting Season

[werther]

Friv, you really stamp it on our foreheads....Lighten up, Francis... ha!

But that is a wonderful tool you got yourself through GFS wind streamlines!
My ECMWF pic above doesn't represent it as dramatic, but I think you're right.
Wetteronline shows anomalous high temp forecasts for the end of May, all over from mackenzie right up to Tiksi. barrow in line with 5-6 dC + and Tiksi into the 14-16 + dC!
Wrangel Island and Ostrov Kotel'nyi also end of freeze period.

We'll see, it's going to be really interesting!

[werther]

Illustrating developments on the Bering side:



Detail from LM r06c03 yesterday; extensive melt ponding on Kotzebue Sound, NW Alaska, part of larger Chukchi Sea.

[Jim Hunt]

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind Friv?

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

[werther]

Sorry Friv, saw Jim's post first...
Yes, Jim, that's where the action is/will be. From my post on the blog 12 May:

"Though there are no melt ponds in vue yet, the severe cracking over most of the tile area does seem to indicate a quality that is weeks ahead/worse than last year..."

Today it shows progressively worse.
When the trend Friv has written about comes true, this tile will be the one to watch...

[Frivolousz21]

Lol, my bad on the ADD posting style.  When I get excited I just go off.

Yeah that's the region.  The winds ramped up yesterday over the Eastern Laptev we can see the largest movement by that Island between the ESS and Laptev.

With HP sprawling from Alaska to Eastern Siberia locked essentially in place The SLPs can't move any further East.

They are moving from Russia across the arctic basin to the CA.  I have like most of you guys follow the arctic daily.

Since 2011 I can't recall this kind of long fetch direct off shore winds in the ESS.


The 06z gfs shows 20 to 25kt winds blowing from the Siberia shore into the arctic basin. This wind field continues all the way to Canada at 15kt+.

This goes on for 24 hrs before weakening to 10-15kt.


Then ramps up after 40 hrs again and is an even wider wind field.

I can't see any reason why we won't see a 50 mile wide+ area of open water emerge the next 3 days in this area

[Frivolousz21]

The timing is the worst part.

It's just late enuf in Spring that any open water can't freeze up and the ice pack has already been moving away from the pacific side for months. 

There is so much room for it to move right now.




On top of that the fast ice is in place so the winds will be much worse then directly coming off land cause of friction.   

[Frivolousz21]

Not to forget Siberian snow cover is way below normal over Eastern Siberia already the models also show it's obliteration.

We all know how big of an impact the snow albedo feedback creates.

Snow vanishes albedo plummets, ground warms and thaws and darkens.  Albedo drops more.

So we see that daily 450W/m2 go from having 60-70% reflected back and the rest melting snow to 30% reflected back and the rest going to warming/evaporation.

Then it's quickly down to 15% and Siberia is rocking very warm temps .

We saw the power of this in late July 2012 when The Beaufort had 20-25c temps blowing off land into to arctic basin.

3-4 meter thick ice was melted in a couple weeks.

As we go on the warmth will come on stronger earlier and earlier

[F.Tnioli]

...
As we go on the warmth will come on stronger earlier and earlier

Of course. It's been few years since Maslowski et al, Wadhams and few other researchers independently predicted nearly ice-free Arctic by 2016 +-2 (some, +-3) years. The less ice there is, the faster melt goes. And now we just see what was well expected, if you'd ask me.



"Details" are still quite important; some, at least. Here's a nice picture which (i believe) shows Greenland high-altitude surface melt during 2012 and 2013. Just note that the punctured line - the average - includes melt figures of 2000s (up to 2010); i believe, should this "baseline average" be instead drawn using, say, 1979...1999, - then it'd be well below 20% at its max point, even. And now, if 2014 will be similar or worse than 2012 (in terms of ice cover - which apparently is quite likely, reading this topic), then i'd say this graph will have a new high this year. And this means alot to sea level rise at very least, feeds back to Arctic ice cover dynamics (Greenland melt waters are very low salinity, i believe?), etc etc. Give Greenland many enough warm-enough years, and it may even shed some catastrophically large melt-water+ice pulse when its structure (and especially its bottom) is weakened enough by all those under-ice "rivers" and "lakes" of melt water. Poor Norwegia could possibly get a wave in compare to which recent Japan tsunami would seem a harmless joke, eh... Not just Norwegia, too. But it won't help if we don't even manage to understand what's going on; to this end, everyone in here - including you - are doing an important thing writing good thinking and observation in here. You guys sure have my gratitude, at very least!

[Frivolousz21]

Here is jaxa from two days ago and yesterday showing the first open water in the ESS region.

We will get an update later today of the Russian side.

[LRC1962]

P-Maker called attention to this site to me. I am no weatherman, but combining these 3 I believe, really gives you a picture of heat coming up from Siberia, the Bering, between Labrador and Greenland, then up the Scandinavian coast hugging the coast until it hits the wind coming from Siberia.Those coast lines are going to get hit hard IMHO depending upon how long those systems hold and the main blocking point seems to be the new norm Greenland.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-70.89,66.30,449
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-70.89,66.30,449
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-70.89,66.30,449
On top of that you seem to have some very warm water coming up the Scandinavian coast going toward the Fram.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-15.14,70.16,984

[LRC1962]

You can also see some bad coastal weather combine these current motion images.
http://arctic.ssec.wisc.edu/data/view-data.php?action=view_animation&product=noaa/IR-loop-L
Click sports on map gives wind speed and power
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449

This gives real time (withing a few hours) picture of the jet stream
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449

[jdallen]

Someone was mentioning that Bering strait might be open unusually early this year. This image is from three days ago:

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r06c03.2014133.terra.1km

Currently, a blast of "warm" moist air is crossing the region.  It would not surprise me if once things clear, the sad, relict ice will be obliterated and large areas of the Chukchi are open.

[davidsanger]

Jaxa Sea Ice extent now closing in on record lows for the date (2006 thru May 25th). Only 80K above the record yesterday.

[Frivolousz21]

Jaxa has updated it's scans of the ESS/Laptev.  We can see what these winds have done so far with about one day of influence.


Looking thru all of the Jaxa records back to the early 2000s as of at least may 21st no year had any open water in the ESS.


First time for everything right?

[F.Tnioli]

Meanwhile, it seems El-nino chances rise massively during this May and June - if i understand this right:



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

[MikeAinOz]

Tnioli, I suspect that you may be correct in your assumption. However, as far as I know, the Nino 3.4 SST Anomaly is measured in a specific place in the Pacific Ocean. Given that we are currently experiencing some rapid climate change, I would not be surprised if El Nino behaves differently or could be measured differently.

[Glenn Tamblyn]

The latest Hycom thickness graph looks interesting. http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif

Given reservations about its absolute accuracy based on the big processing change last year, the relative changes might still be interesting. The Laptev up to 80N is certainly thinning faster than just about anywhere else. A major expanse of open water there with in a month looks a real possibility.

[F.Tnioli]

... However, as far as I know, the Nino 3.4 SST Anomaly is measured in a specific place in the Pacific Ocean. Given that we are currently experiencing some rapid climate change, I would not be surprised if El Nino behaves differently or could be measured differently.

Yet, it's not about Nino 3.4 only. Quote:

" The weekly SST indices were near to slightly above average and increasing in the Niño1+2, Niño3 and Niño3.4 regions, and above average in the Niño4 region (Fig. 2). The downwelling phase of a strong oceanic Kelvin wave that began in January greatly increased the oceanic heat content during March and April (Fig. 3), and produced large positive subsurface temperature anomalies across the central and eastern Pacific (Fig. 4). The upper portion of these subsurface anomalies reached the sea surface, warming the waters east of 125oW longitude. "

Source (and further details): http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html .

[BornFromTheVoid]

That storm that passed over the Kara sea over the last 2 days have given the sea ice quite a push.

[jdallen]

That storm that passed over the Kara sea over the last 2 days have given the sea ice quite a push.

I wish Lance-Modis hadn't lost all that imagery... Only comparisons are 2010/2011.  Doesn't look dramatically different, but nonetheless, the pack there has lost all integrity.

That seems to be a signature feature of the changes in the ice as a whole; the disassembly of major stretches of pack ice into disconnected flows separated by leads, which are filled or not with significantly thinner ice.

Here is 2010 for comparison.

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r03c05.2010134.terra

[jdallen]

The latest Hycom thickness graph looks interesting. http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif

Given reservations about its absolute accuracy based on the big processing change last year, the relative changes might still be interesting. The Laptev up to 80N is certainly thinning faster than just about anywhere else. A major expanse of open water there with in a month looks a real possibility.

I take HYCOM thickness with a serious helping of salt. I do find it useful in following ice movement. In that regard I do think I see a new factor which ties back to that, and the progressive decrease in pack integrity.

I will try to quantify it, but it seems to me that this season has seen far greater export of ice through the gaps between Svalbard, Franz Joseph Land and Nova Zemlya.

My thinking is, this may have happened in the past, but unlike the past, we have A much warmer Barents Sea.  The result is another conveyor like the Fram, as where previously the ice would remain and inhibit further export, it melts in the warmer Barents waters.

The the additional displacement permitted ripples all the way across the pack.

[Siffy]

Meanwhile, it seems El-nino chances rise massively during this May and June - if i understand this right:



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?

[Lord M Vader]

Latest GFS shows an amazingly big heat dome to reach ESS, Chukchi and Berings Sea next week!! A minor heat dome will reach ESS this weekend but the real blow arrives next week. The powerful cyclone should do a good job to the ice in these areas followed by temperatures over zero. It's possible that the temps in ESS may be over zero day around as the sun will be there 24/7 soon... We may see something really unexpected then!! As there is a huge polynya in ESS and off shore winds is expected next week I won't be surprised if there will be a polynya that creates a "corridor" in the ESS and Chukchi the whole way from Berings sea to Severnaya Zemlya area... What do you think about this?

Todays numbers from JAXA only showed a small decrease in SIE. The ice around Frans Josef and Svalbard should deteriorate quickly next week.. Don't be surprised if we are close to 11 million km2 by May 31 or June 1...

Interestingly, DMI shows temps way below normal right now.. Given the heat domes arrival next week those negative anomalies should switch to positive numbers but we'll see what the future brings!!

What are your thoughts about next weeks expected heat dome arrival?

[ChrisReynolds]

F Tnioli,

I've come across very little connecting the ENSO to Arctic sea ice, see here for example. Where researchers have to zoom in on regions and resort to advanced math like wavelets it's safe to say the effect is small and that other factors far outweigh it.

Considering the 1998 super ENSO - It is worth noting that September 1998 was a local peak of NSIDC sea ice extent, 1999 was down on 1998 and the following years were similar in minimum extent to 1999.

In terms of PIOMAS volume, after 1998 there was a continued drop in volume, but Lindsay & Zhang put this down to ice albedo feedback, triggered by the PDO, and AO prior to 1998, not the ENSO. The running sum of interanual differences in NSIDC Extent starts a downwards movement after 1997.



But the impact after 1998 on global temperature has been a flattening of the increase in temperature after about 2002, so I struggle to see how Arctic sea ice loss is strongly affected by the ENSO.

Siffy,

You may be right, isn't there a lag of 3 months with global temperature (don't quote me on that I may be getting mixed up with Pinatubo's cooling influence).


LMVader,

I wouldn't say that DMI is 'way' below normal, it's only a few degrees. Much of the edges of the  pack is up to 2.5 to 5degC above normal. The large region of blue on the plot below is due to the distortion caused by the grid points nearing the pole itself - which is colder than average.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.html

JD Allen questions HYCOM thickness, my concern is that its thickest ice seems to be too thick. However the thickness of much of the first year ice, around 2m thick, is believable. And I suspect the situation off Siberia is real.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictnnowcast.gif

Warming to around zero starts to happen now in recent years and seems to be a factor in the PIOMAS spring volume loss anomaly that has been a feature of the post 2010 years (see attached graphic). With next month's PIOMAS data release we should be able to see the loss start, but we'll have to wait for June's data (released July) to see how big it is.

Fingers crossed for a big one. 

[Lord M Vader]

Interestingly, the ECMWF 12z run today friday is somewhat disturbing.. The heat dome which have been predicted is no longer appearing but instead blocked by a cyclone.. Let's see how the coming forecasts show up!!:)

[Siffy]

Interestingly, the ECMWF 12z run today friday is somewhat disturbing.. The heat dome which have been predicted is no longer appearing but instead blocked by a cyclone.. Let's see how the coming forecasts show up!!:)

I wouldn't look at the forecasts much beyond five days as their accuracy after that point is pretty questionable.

Siffy,

You may be right, isn't there a lag of 3 months with global temperature (don't quote me on that I may be getting mixed up with Pinatubo's cooling influence).

That is my understanding as well, although I have to admit I can't recall where I picked up that idea from.

[Lord M Vader]

Siffy, I'm well aware about the fact that forecasts a week ahead have a high degree of uncertainity... Still, IF the heat dome would make its way through ESS, Chukchi and Berings sea it would be remarkable interestingly! And despite the fact that it's a week from now we can always speculate..

[LRC1962]

What I find interesting is what is happening around the Bering.
You have Warm strong winds coming from the Pacific. Compare
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449 and http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449
Caused by a pinched off circular jet stream wind.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-224.97,90.22,449
Alberta, Canada had experience with one of those when there was severe flooding that resulted because of weeks of storms. The longer that lasts the more heat will get pumped into the Arctic giving more fuel to lows.

[Frivolousz21]

The 12z Euro diverged quite a bit and keeps the vortex locked in while having a much slower transition to a dipole anomaly with a large vortex where colder air is pooled on the Russian side and not the Kara region.

 

It still ends up a dipole and the ensembles are a more pro the previous OP runs.  But this could be a trend away from the massive warm air incursion that was progged to hit the Pacific side.

 

Hopefully this is a real change and not just the euro being over amplified with the first vortex.

 

The GFS held serve.  And is still backed by the GEM, Euro Ensembles, GFS ensembles for a terrible pattern emerging after day 4-5.

 

But it's worth noting because the OP euro is dramatically better for the ice.

[jdallen]

Over the next 7 days, climate re analyzer is pretty torchy across most of the arctic, showing consistent positive anomalies.

I will add, even after a "cool off", we will still be 225,000 KM2 below 2013 at this date.

We will just have to see.

[Lord M Vader]

Have anyone of you looked at the latest ACFNS forecast? Even if there is a degree of uncertainity in the model, just look and compare the pics in ice thickness between May 16 18z and May 24 00z.. My mouth was going through the floor due to the predicted weakness in the ice thickness which goes virtually the whole way to the North Pole...

Your thoughts about this?

[Frivolousz21]

There are huge differences right now between the GFS and Euro.

Both end up with a bad dipole anomaly.  But the GFS crushes parts of the arctic.


The Southern half of GIS is also about to get super baked with a mega ridge.

[Siffy]

There are huge differences right now between the GFS and Euro.

Both end up with a bad dipole anomaly.  But the GFS crushes parts of the arctic.


The Southern half of GIS is also about to get super baked with a mega ridge.

Any chance you could screenshot what you are seeing as I'm missing it in my quick search through GFS.

[seattlerocks]

Have anyone of you looked at the latest ACFNS forecast? Even if there is a degree of uncertainity in the model, just look and compare the pics in ice thickness between May 16 18z and May 24 00z.. My mouth was going through the floor due to the predicted weakness in the ice thickness which goes virtually the whole way to the North Pole...

Your thoughts about this?

Yes that's the effect of the storm for the next few days. The effect is much weaker than last year's persistent cyclone though. Then, the ACFNS predicted a big hole opening up in Central Arctic, and nearly happened so. The same persistent cyclone that apparently prevented so much sun radiation hit the ice.

However I see things are going different this year in that there's a lot of heat flow coming from Pacific, West to East direction, that was absent last year.

[Frivolousz21]

Here is the 00z GFS we can see the major warming on the Pacific side after day 3-4.  That is nasty for this time of year to have that large of an area of the basin with 0C+ 850mb temps. 

If what the GFS shows is right.  Snow cover in that region will also be totally decimated a week from now.

[Lord M Vader]

Is it just me or is it a pinhole break in the ice at the border between Beaufort Sea and CAB in the map today May 17 by Arctische Pinguin at https://0c35ba35-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/apamsr2/home/pngcby32/Arc_20140516_res3.125_pyres.nc.gz.png?attachauth=ANoY7crtxtNljRjLZLzhbnPiRUKPqBOqWTUMDFrmwofns63l0QVNDGYehTnwdQo9oGJTaxgO5_6sBmL_JyMcQR7rNGByxhdbhfZvgn_F9-I2KBHz_0Z9fWv3NjBwHYum-h-E7BF8NBlNWTg9MPYkvqjHT-0UDHo4YJTvxkOw7bd7J7KSAdWCtDUbJa5zMGCbyaL8DdUuqREN2dvuxOX3OunbO5jfeGpPwnq4-VcxiwUgUo_EuiXd8HHpQ-BpbZnoHoT7dI6oVl7k&attredirects=0 ? Do you see it? Is it reasonable to believe that we could get a minor polynya in this area this early in the melt season? Have such thing ever happened before?

Anyway, Pevek in ESS close to Wrangels Island may get 0-5C next week and a reasonable amount of sunlight.. Should do a good blow to the ice there!

Tomorrow, May 18 the SIE will highly likely go below 12 million km2 which is 5 days later than the record earliest date for that limit.

[BornFromTheVoid]

The 12z GFS is now out, and it continues the trend seen in the 00 and 06z runs, with some exceptionally warm air gathering over Siberia and pushing north into the ESS and then central Arctic.
It's a case of eyes on the ECM now to see if that backtracks to the GFS.

Either way, we should continue to see slow/steady losses over the next 3-4 days with mild air affecting the southern Baffin sea and continued loss of what remains in the Bering and Okhotsk seas.
Both the GFS and ECM, however, agree on the first really warm spell over Hudson late on Tuesday, around the same time as the GFS predicts the warm air arriving in the ESS. Should the two of these occur, we could well see our first spell of exceptional area and extent drops, with losses exceeding 100k/day.

[Frivolousz21]

The 12z GFS is insane.

Holy crap.

[Frivolousz21]

That vortex that the GFS shows would also wreck the Kara.

Even with cold low level air overhead.

[idunno]

2 oddities;

DMI +80°N temps continue to flatline at approx -10°C, but CT area is falling rapidly, andthe neg anomaly growing.

CT and UniBreman colour coded maps look very different to each other. Looks like CT may be registering all areas North of 80° as 100% ice.

[Neven]

Is it just me or is it a pinhole break in the ice at the border between Beaufort Sea and CAB in the map today May 17 by Arctische Pinguin at https://0c35ba35-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/apamsr2/home/pngcby32/Arc_20140516_res3.125_pyres.nc.gz.png?attachauth=ANoY7crtxtNljRjLZLzhbnPiRUKPqBOqWTUMDFrmwofns63l0QVNDGYehTnwdQo9oGJTaxgO5_6sBmL_JyMcQR7rNGByxhdbhfZvgn_F9-I2KBHz_0Z9fWv3NjBwHYum-h-E7BF8NBlNWTg9MPYkvqjHT-0UDHo4YJTvxkOw7bd7J7KSAdWCtDUbJa5zMGCbyaL8DdUuqREN2dvuxOX3OunbO5jfeGpPwnq4-VcxiwUgUo_EuiXd8HHpQ-BpbZnoHoT7dI6oVl7k&attredirects=0 ? Do you see it? Is it reasonable to believe that we could get a minor polynya in this area this early in the melt season? Have such thing ever happened before?

If we are looking at the same thing, LMV, I would say it's probably clouds messing things up a bit. If you want to check out events compared to previous years, go here.

The ECMWF forecast is very fickle, one moment it shows a huge dipole, the next it's back to a dominating cyclone.

[seattlerocks]

The ECMWF forecast is very fickle, one moment it shows a huge dipole, the next it's back to a dominating cyclone.

A tipping point. '13 cyclone or '07 dipole.

[Neven]

Yes, it could be a key moment. But there will probably be others after that, unless it becomes a complete copy of 2013.

[Lord M Vader]

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...

[Neven]

This is part of what I looked at (the whole black-grey streak). Could be clouds, could be low concentration. If it's the latter, it will probably close up again when the winds shift. Have you checked out the satellite images?

[AmbiValent]

2 oddities;

DMI +80°N temps continue to flatline at approx -10°C, but CT area is falling rapidly, andthe neg anomaly growing.

CT and UniBreman colour coded maps look very different to each other. Looks like CT may be registering all areas North of 80° as 100% ice.

I think CT has 95%-100% as almost the same color (and 90% still very similar), while UniBremen has quite different ones for 100%, 99% and >95%.

[Frivolousz21]

Hamberg uses amsr channel 89 for ice retrieval which has a ground res of 3x5km. 

While CT uses SSMIS channel 37 and 18 which have terrible resolution of 31 and 47km.

So Bremens grid res is 6.25km  while CT is 25km.

I personally find very little value in ct concentration.

I find Bremen is contaminated by higher clouds that cause the concentration to be higher then it really is at times.

I like jaxa the best because we have the final product.  Amsr2 channel 18/37 which is hi res now.

And the channel 89 seperate.

Channel 89 is great for determining ice thickness.

Channels 37/18 are great for telling where the ice surface is melting as well as where the MYI is.

Hamburg 3.125km is boss for intricate details but is prone to cloud contamination

[Frivolousz21]

Modis shows the lower concentration ice talked about above.  It's a n area of shattered floes.

[Frivolousz21]

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. 

[jdallen]

Yes, it could be a key moment. But there will probably be others after that, unless it becomes a complete copy of 2013.

The key moment is looking increasingly bad.  For most intents and purposes, the Bering is clear, and Chukchi disintergrating.

Baffin Bay looks bad.

Kara is coming apart.

And then, we have the ESS.

Lance Modis is showing a lot of bad stuff all at once.