Gray-Wolf

So , anyhoos, I'm not sold on how Nasa can know so little about the comet on one hand and then suddenly know enough to reassure us that only 'dust, microns across, will be it's cargo? But , were it to be dust then what could this do to cloud formation in the upper trop as it makes it's way to ground level? I'd only be guessing but it might be a thing that helps slow AGW's impacts? And then if it is a 'yearly' encounter it could go a long way to slowing the worse that AGW has to offer? As you know I have my concerns about upcoming 'positive feedbacks' from the warming we are commited to and this might be a way of not having to deal with such impacts (just yet?). It is only a thinking excercise guys, we none of us can know until we know what we are dealing with but I thought it might be of interest esp. with all the talk of geoengineering that we hear?

I think both me and the Arctic would rather stay as we are BFTV!!! ( at least until after we've done the Lakes in early Aug!!!!)

Perfect day in the calder valley today. Vest tops and shorts but not too steamy. Long may it continue but could we have a couple of overnight electric storms please???

I just don't think piomas is able to reflect ice conditions like we see in the central Arctic Basin? I'd be interested to see if Cryosat2 could make reasoned sense of such a mish mash of ice? you know from over on neven's questions are being asked about how some of the modeling is handling conditions this year and , to be fair, it is the first time we have seen such conditions in the Basin? I have to go with 'gut' and say that Feb's mangling set the stage for the degradation of the pack under PAC13 and only now are we beginning to suspect that what we 'expected' from such conditions, bolstered by what our thickness/concentration tools were showing us, may have been wrong and that now, emerging into the sunshine, is the wreckage of the ice cover awaiting the coup de Grace from 2 weeks of full summer sun?

Well there were cliffs and there are cliffs!!! I suppose this is what happens when you have 'normal total melt out' areas doing their thing along with a mass of very trashed ice in areas that do not usually 'melt out'? Question has to be how long can it carry on like this? We are getting to the end of Hudson and the like but we still have Beaufort yet to go? Are we already seeing Central Arctic Basin input here or is it all still fringe areas? Well this next two weeks is going to be of great interest to those of us struggling with how this year will end up for sure!

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

http://www.newsdaily.com/article/920d9727ab22135881f58608d311be26/un-2001-2010-decade-shows-faster-warming-trend Seems the UN are taking issue with you Sparks?

I'd just posted the latest WMO report over on 'manmade' Pete and they do not seem to see any 'cooling/Stalling' in global temps either?

We see quite a few of these over the 'Summer Fate' season mainly in the shapes of the current 'disney' characters......... usually there is a wailing child somewhere on the ground below watching his 'UFO' float off......

For a plant I would suspect 'Extreme' is where you begin to suffer under the prevalent conditions? Looking around my Garden today i can see that some of the plants will 'suffer' and , should i not give them a hand, will quickly die?

It is the 'Sun dive' part of it all that has me most worried! I'm sure if it survives it will turn out to be a once in a lifetime show as its head is blasted by such a close pass around our Sun. Maybe it will turn into something even better than is currently being touted ( maybe folk are being a tad conservative with their estimates due to past 'flops'???) and become the defining Comet of the millenium?

I think it is behind the sun at present and so we're not getting a good look at it until it's much closer? The corona and tail from this image are not 'ice' sublimating but gasses coming off the body. Apparently it is only when it's beyond Mars orbit that we will have a chance to see how it might preform in Nov/Dec as there is enough heat to start to melt off the ice and form the tail we will see? I do hope it's all that it is being talked up into and that the Jan 12th ( and week after) meeting with it's tail is also a remarkable event!

And, as Was 'removed' from that thread, the small circle of area included within the 80N is not a fair representation of the 'arctic Circle' esp. with the 'melt issues' keeping temps there lower than they would be were 'melt' not occuring? Surely if we saw temp spikes there over summer similar to the winter ones we would need to worry!!! EDIT: And as for talks of a 'cooldown' or pause in global warming we had this on july 3rd from the WMO; http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_976_en.html

Thanks for that BFTV! I'm sure that is going to be very interesting over the next few months and, should the 'slow start' really have masked the ice being primed for melt later, it will highlight the rapid loss of the 'primed ice'? In some ways we may all have focused on 'temp' too much and neglected the mechanical weathering that the thin pack has been forced to endure over the slow loss period? After all the name of the game is 'ice melt' and it does not matter if that ice melts in June or in Aug just that the ice melts? If you have two areas of ice, one is solid contiguous ice and the other is the same volume but mangled into floes and ice rubble. We let the 'solid ice' have a 2012 like period of melt and the rubble we keep cool until half of the solid ice has melted away.If we then allowed the mangled ice to see 'average' 2012 type melt conditions as well which would melt away to nothing the quickest? This is the issue I have and sadly I think I have to 'watch' what happens to find the answer? I do suspect that it would be a close run thing though even with the mangled ice starting it's melt cycle with twice the volume that the solid ice sheet had left?

I've been looking at that seeing as the Greenland Sea ice is down? Is it lack of transport or is it melting, uber fast, right up at the NE tip of Greenland? All the ice that is 'mangled' does seem to melt out very fast as soon as it encounters 'melt conducive' conditions?

This is my take on things also ( though it is at odds with other 'more knowledgeable posters?) and leads me to believe that being able to better forecast the 'flow' of the Jet would bring a' heads up' for potentials like our previous years flooding and Europe's impacts this year? If we know that we have certain geographic features 'force the jet in certain directions ( like the Rockies?) and that certain low ice/snow levels allow the Arctic to become far warmer, far quicker than the rest of the hemisphere then maybe we can 'rough out' the most probable amplitude and wavelength of the Jet that will result? As with any 'oscillation' you can impart more energy at one point but would you then not expect the impacts to resonate for a period before the pattern again settles? If that 'resonating' goes on long enough to meet the next 'shove' then what would we then expect to see?

And surely there is a place for correcting 'errors' that folk might make? If you are working on wrong assuptions then you are never going to be 'right' in your final assesment? This was the point of the 'arctic circle' Temps comment? If you are trying to show folk that something is occuring then surely you need be 'correct' in your starting data and , in that case, the 80N temps were not doing that for the 'Arctic'?

Well I think we are now seeing the combined impacts of the Feb fragmentation and then the re-opening of that shattered ice by the 'Persistent Arctic Cyclone'. I believe that the weakening of the thin pack in Feb 'primed' the pack for the mangling it then took over the 5 or 6 weeks of near constant central basin Low Pressures? The 'old Arctic' had ice thick enough not to have been troubled by the L.P.'s the way this years pack has and would have 'prospered' under the cold and cloud. this time I do not think this was the case and whilst 'extent/area' may have remained high and losses slow the ice was undergoing a transformation by mechanical weathering leaving us with this mix of well rounded floes set in a sea of 'mush'. As the floes are degraded their surface area to mass ratio changes and we know that the larger the surface area is compared to it's mass the easier it takes up energy and melts. If we do now see a period of settled , sunny conditions across the pack I think losses will be rapid and we may find ourselves amongst the other high loss years in no time at all ( and not trailing them all)? By early Aug we will then be looking at a basin with the ice quite differently arranged compared to the post 07' Aug Packs? Will this make a difference to the losses over the last phase of the melt season? I think it will.

I take it the recent 'dip' is due to heavy weather in the Southern ocean nibbling away at the ice edge? If it does turn into a stormy winter down there it may well impact the final ice max total as recent years have had increases in extent pushing north into the southern ocean where it is at risk of having storms flush it into the warmer waters?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23144184 I remember the discussions about the changes to the ice surface as the lake filled and drained but this data brings the scale of the event into even clearer focus?

We're just waiting on Beaufort now then? The forecast looks as though the next two weeks might bring a similar change to ice levels there as you have shown us occur in Kara BFTV? When I've watched the ice edge of the central region it appears that as soon as the 'Slush Puppy' matrix is faced with open water it rapidly vanishes leaving just the rounded floes to drift into open water? Are we now about to see this shattered ice in the central region disappear quite fast over the next few weeks?

And I cannot see it not having some impact? I'm thinking more of it's Autumn impacts ( and energyfrom the Feb Fracture event) helping 'form' the Jet patterns we have been seeing? I do accept that the 'natural' forcings must, at some point, combine to bring us this nice dry period like the current one but it does appear ( to me) far to 'coincidental' that we see yet another 'pattern shift' the year after another large loss of extent/Area? We are still seeing areas blighted by 'stuck/slow moving weather patterns so the Jet is still 'acting' in the new way but the wave form has shuffled along allowing the trough/ridges to occupy different regions than where we had become accustomed to finding them since 07'? At least it has spared Greenland from a repeat of the last few years of High pressure dominated summer melt? Not so for Alaska which now seems to have a ridge over it allowing record high temps there?

Well I am either a very licky 'guesser' or the impacts from last years record low ice/snow is having the type of impacts that I proposed earlier on? The MetO's meeting seemed keener on pushing other 'natural' forcings for the changes we are seeing but I'm still sticking with it being snow/sea ice reduction that impacted the jets 'positioning' after last years further drop in levels. If 07' was responsible for setting up the jet positioning that gave us the terrible summers then a similar drop last year had to give another shove tothe system leading to different areas seeing Troughs/Peaks ( and the weather associated with them). As it is I will enjoy my Hammock this next period of Summer instead of hiding beneath a Brolly!!!

Hi Knock's ! good to see you! Yup , i'm quite concerned at the current 'state' of the pack? When you look over at the Kara sector you can see what becomes of the 'matrix' of slush Puppy once it sees open water ( it's gone!!! and instantly?) . We are now in the 'high Arctic' period of the melt season and PAC13 has left the ice up there in a pretty awful condition. The slightest move toward warmth and this 'slush Puppy' matrix is toast leaving just the well rounded floes? We saw similar post GAC12 on the Beaufort side last early Aug so we are no looking and wondering what will occur. The bigger question is how do we 'remove' all ofthe ice that is destined to melt from the remainder and make sense of the result? So far we have had a slow season, melt wise, but an epic season for conditioning the pack for rapid melt out? In the past weather conditions , like we have had, merely allowed the pack to maintain? this time ( in the 'modern Arctic') the time has been spent on degrading the ice to the condition we find it today. Has it been a 'boon' or will we see the 'same old, same old' as soon as the heat takes hold? A most interesting season though!

I do not care how 'stung' I am from Pete's unkind 'put down' nor J.H.'s 'old money View you cannot pump so much energy into the jet and expect 'null' result? QBO inches on and everyone hangs on it's every shuffle but pump mega energy into the jet up north and???? so why not? Again we see a steady progression in snow loss across the north and temps are popping old records ( and some not that old????) and yet 'naught'. Nil points, like it really does not matter in the day to day run of our weather? Do you really need someone 'more experienced' to give you permission to think 'outside the box' and include She ite load of forcing not yet Incorporated in the models? Can you not just look outside the window and 'see' the strangeness? Can you not see the 'switch ' in jet position writ large acrossv the U.S.??? ( and burning them up as we speak???) due to the half crank of the JET's cycle? What else dbrings that to us folk? what else? , a gentle shuffle of the QBO ? what would a 'record low in ice and open sea surface to milk the suns energy' do to impact the Jet's amplitude and frequency??? Carry on , dismiss me , bar me , but it will not change the day to day impacts of our changing climate.