Gray-Wolf

Sorry BFTV the last Edit was for P.P. and I should have made that more clear? I'm sure I am skipping ahead of things in my looking at lows and how they will impact the Basin but , sadly, that's the kind of beastie I am and it gets me all manner of trouble!

I'm sorry P.P. but I am more akin to the reporter on the Hindenburg incident than you would enjoy and I cannot alter that ( I'm sure you would not wish to change the world to all be 'You' now would you?). This is , at the end of the day, all about 'The humanity' is it not? ( and all our fellow travelers on 'spaceship Earth?)

I'm sorry Pete but i'm either not understanding what you are saying or you have not been watching the arctic since mid season 07' ( which i know you have!!!) The Beaufort gyre used to do what ( exactly ) to ice? and what did we see it do to the last of the old paleocryistic in 2011? Barentsz used to be a place where we found mountains of what in the 30's and 40's ? and what have we seen there the past 13yrs? Baffin used to present quite an obstacle to shipping even in Aug, what are conditions like there now in Aug?(and pleeeeease don't say it's only June!!!) The northern passage was not traversed by vessels for how many years? how many have done the route since 07'? The NW passage used to , on average, take how long to complete? How many years has it recently been open? Sailing around the pole has been done by 'light vessels' how many times pre-07'? In it's 40yr history how many times has the Russian Arctic Lab ( on an ice floe) called for evacuation in May? I know we all must question everything but once asked , and replied, how many times more must we tread that ground? Stewfox. The currently accepted figure for a 'Seasonally ice free Arctic basin' is sub 1 Million kmsq , you got a problem? take it up with the profs..... EDIT; BFTV I found this ( latest paper on Arctic cyclone and their workings?) ; http://air.geo.tsukuba.ac.jp/~tanaka/papers/paper264.pdf It would seem that they are rather more random in their behaviours than what we are seeing and that 94' (pre 07') may not prove a good analogy for what is 'normal' in cyclone behaviour in the basin??? EDIT: nice news article but the quote appears to fit here , presently , nicesly Take, for example, Dr Nikki Williams, head of Australia's coal industry lobby, who said a few weeks ago: "I don't know about you but the last time I flew to Europe – which was last week – it was pretty apparent that the Arctic was still there…" Are you really counted among these folk?

Then how do you describe an Arctic bereft of paleocryistic ice P.P.? how do you describe an Arctric that is predominantly FY ice come spring P.P.? How do you describe an Arctic that shows 80% less volume than it did P.P. My Bum is open for biting mate but hows about yours?

Thanks BFTV! Let's see how this now presents in a 'Modern Arctic'? You can imagine the ice thickness/types across the basin back then and how such a pattern impacted upon the basin back then but , and this is most important, this is not 'Then'? I think you would be the first to concede that things are very different across the basin today and , as such, such a persistent low is a 'new' feature to study ( in it's effects and behaviour?). As you have conceded, in recent summers, Synoptics that used to nurture ice , and sea areas that used to grow ice, seem to have turned on their heads? As many now await the first 'ice free' ( sub 1 million) year such a spectacle is worth witnessing (and studying) do you not think? In your 'Career' you are placed perfectly to witness, assimilate and digest the new workings of the Basin and so I feel it prudent that you remain open to both 'past instances' of such occurrences but also how the 'New Arctic' deals with such today? To me ( alone?) I cannot draw parallels with the basin's behaviour pre 07' when looking at present features without noting certain 'changes' in what we witness from certain synoptics?

I think you need to look at the low previous as it never really fizzled just prowled around the basin. as with the discussion over on nevens blog i'm 'witnessing it' as a low that formed in May and looks set to at least chew up the larger part of early June? My ruminations settle around the lack of 'activity' around the northern hemisphere? things appear pretty slack around our hemisphere with no readily discernible patterns of savage lows running amok but the odd 'trough' and HP systems. as such nothing is throwing it's influence or steering currents over the Polar region and the general rotation is allowing it's influence (as with the Coriolis ) to settle the LP over the pole. Last nights ECMWF showed another 'nastier' side of such a low which is as the ice melts and the land around warms we get enhanced contrasts twixt ice and land allowing intensification of the low (with open water allowing higher moisture content) and an edge toward a persistent GAC12 type cyclone. That would be the end of ice in the basin.

This is where we find out if reduced snow cover really does readily impact into the adjacent basin? Last Aug we saw massive thickness drops off Greenland's N. Coast through Aug (once the shore-fast ice had gone and the land had been baking for 6 weeks). As I'd wondered (here) prior to the first 'central low', with ice readily shattering into small floes due to the impacts of the Feb Fracture event what will be the fate of the ice expelled into the shallow coastal regions? On the Siberian/European side we also have the river outflows from the warming land (only McKenzie on the Canadian side?) to eat into the ice. I think we also need remember the apparent NAD 'extension' into the basin during the latter part of the melt season? Post 07' the 'hard to melt ice has been the central , older, pack. What occurs if this ice is mangled and has had a lot of dark water over max insolation? I'd agree with BFTV,things do look 'interesting' for this time of year? EDIT: Just been over Nevens and they too seem to question why this central cyclone is hanging around Chris Reynolds has said he'll E-Mail prof Francis to see if she can shed more light on whether such a stationary low is common over the Arctic spring/early summer. I'll pass on any info that comes from it EDIT,EDIT; Hey BFTV, ( on your attached map) doesn't the low concentration ice just about pick out last years min ice cover with the higher concentration ice picking out where we had total melt out???

Well seeing as past example shows that the 'previous' record years ice low has never been subsequently been beaten once a new low was made then we ,at least, lower than 07'? I can't help believing, all that said, that we are watching a slow dwindle away of the ice and that we will hit last years low if not lower? Once June , and it's central basin storms, are over we'll have a better idea of how things will end up. One thing is certain in my mind though and that is the basin has changed from the way it was, and behaved, 30yrs ago. To me I see the ice below a certain 'critical' point where recovery (back to 1950's levels) is a very difficult thing to imagine without catastrophic global events leading to many 'years without summer' so allowing the strength of recovery needed to survive the coming 'perfect storm' years (and subsequent ones) and an albedo impact to offset our current warming? EDIT: I've just read that Watts and Co. will not be entering their poll due to the apparent fact that 'Trolls' have been posting for a 6 million plus min???? does he really think that AGW adherents; A/ want to engage there any more (apart from the kudos of a ban for posting 'troubling' data) B/ Would not vote for a lower than reasonable vote? I did follow his first poll and it would appear that his own folk were crazed enough to believe in such figures as 'possibilities'??? It seems far better sense to leave them alone to their own devices and let their own views do the speaking as to how in touch with reality they are??? I visit 'solar24' and they are of a very similar cut over their but have the brass balls to just 'carry on as if nothing happened' when their whacked out predictions are shown up against the reality (Oh! I do like that week over their ....such fun!)

Well the weather up there does not seem to want to follow 2012 BFTV! The low setting up over the pole looks to last an age (the complete 180hrs on GFS and 240hrs on ECWFM!!) I'd ask again is it possible that the actual 'spin' of the planet could help keep such a low lodged over the pole for great duration's of time? With this 'New' Arctic of young, thin ice I really have to wonder if such synoptics could end up being very poor for the ice there? If peripheral areas keep warm ( and deal with their ice) then does that not just produce killing fields for ice to be flung out into? Will it not mess around with the ocean profile introducing warmer, saltier waters to the surface whilst mixing out Fresher, colder melt/river run off??? The breaks in the cloud up there today already show a pretty mangled central pack (note the 'rounded' floes, not lozenge shaped as more normal for the time of year?) so another bashing must surely only make it's ability to survive the season less (esp. if we keep seeing the surface to mass ratio of individual floes keep favouring higher surface area??).

Good spread of ideas ( none too 'extreme'?) from those interested enough to vote. A big vote of thanks ( from us all I'm sure? ) for BFTV for putting in the effort (again!) and bringing us the opportunity to stake our credibility on how low the ice will fall. Thanks BFTV, the world needs the 'doozers' .....and not just us Fraggles!

We've just had 5 years of this, or that, major grtain producer not b eing able to export due to 'weather generated shortfalls' impacting 'aid' supplies. How can reality appear at such odds with 'promises'? Russia, already looks to again ban grain exports due to 'drought/wildfire/flood' across it's grain producing areas?

Hamburgers, hmmm, yes. I used to call them Mc Murder burgers? As a farmer you know how much 'Fossil fuel' goes into a burger? From the machinery needed to service the land, to fertilisers to pharm products to transport to slaughter house to factory costs to produce the burger to distribution and storage to purchase. Better off with a home caught grasshopper eh? New cars? You have to make them and get to the point of sale but 'using them' is probably a lot cleaner?

http://climatedesk.org/category/climate-desk-live/ I think 4.30pm EDT is 10.30 here? For those interested in our recent climate extremes then this should prove both interesting and informative?

I think the 'Great Arctic cyclone 12' of early Aug, did not have the impact on ice levels some folk would like you to believe? Much of the million shed was already about to 'blink out' ( as we saw in the Canadian Archipelago just prior to GAC12). the problems it brought were the mixing of the surface water and , as such storms become more common over open Arctic water, this will continue to be true. The depth of mixing that some buoys measured impacted the bottom, warm, Atlantic waters and the concern must be that the halocline above (cold,fresher) is lost/mixed out? The warmth brought into the basin by the Atlantic bottom waters (and pacific bottom waters) would already render the basin ice free year round if it were at the surface and so the longer we can keep a 'cap' over this resource the better? It has been a very different (more 'normal'?) year over the basin thus far so I have to wonder if this will continue? Before i witnessed the 'change' to the impacts of weather types the succession of Lows would have had me hoping for a 'rebound year' well above last years record low but seeing as I know this weather type can now actively destroy ice (or at least smash the thin ice we have to bits?) then I cannot feel confident about the Sept Min.? if ice is flung out to the peripheries then it would place a cold source right next to war source of the continents? To me this speaks of low formation and the bigger the contrast between the air masses the more vigorous the Low? Though we may see a very different 'weather year' I think the 'ice year' will be just as dramatic as the last 6 years and may well alter the 'make up' of the basin ice expanding further the amount of First year ice compared to older ice. To me this is the precursor to a seasonal pack with a basin full of young, thin ice that is able to completely melt out over an average year?

Hi BFTV! I understand the role of the reduction in temp Grad ( and thickness) twixt pole and equator impacts the Jet over the period of low ice/greatest heating but the impacts, further on down the line, from 'tweaking' the system are what I'm cogitating over? Come Aug/Sept/Oct I will be looking to see if there are changes to the pattern that i can ascribe to the ice loss/snow loss but for now it is more how I imagine those impacts of late last year could still be resonating in the system? If there is a 'carry over' of the greater, more immediate impact, then I have to also wonder as to the effect this then brings into play over the next 'low ice' period? I used the analogy of a swing with 'low ice' being the shoves we give it. The slow wind down from this energy keeps the motion going and if this lasts until the next 'Push' then it would take less energy to reach the same height, or, to put it another way, a similar push this time would lead to the swing getting higher than last time? If this is so then the weather patterns we witness would become more 'extreme' even with no 'extra energy' becoming available? Should more energy be available ( as seems likely to me as the remnant pack dwindles to 'seasonal'......and then that 'season' becomes longer under the sun) then we could see the perturbations to the systems appear greater than we might expect due to this 'remainder' from the previous year? A kind of feedback loop setting up that feeds itself and eventually provides a way of heating the far north even faster as the Jet 'peaks' push deep into the Arctic Circle pulling sub-tropical air with it?

Though very sad to see I have to wonder if the central European areas blighted by flooding will continue to see the trough stuck over then as we have this past 6 summers? If we do not see that anomalous S.Greenland high set up I have to wonder if that area has shunted to us ( giving us a run of HP dominated weather) whilst central Europe has 'our' Lows?? Has last years 'extra energy' persuaded the Jet pattern to shift round a bit shunting the weather types along with it?? If so we will have a splendid summer of frequent HP dominated weather and the chance of Spanish/N.African plumes to give us some fireworks once in a while? Perfect for me if that should occur!!!

Hi EES91! We do appear to see less and less fresh ,cold water from ice melt but this is supplemented from the increased flow rates from the rivers flowing into the basin on from increased Greenland melt? The 'difference' to how things used to be is the amount of open water that can be 'overturned' by depressions? Currently we appear to have a steady stream of central basin LP systems crunching the ice? With June normally showing our melt rates pick up to summer levels (100km2 days) these storms will be of interest. Will they augment melt rates or will they protect the ice? In the old basin the cloudy conditions used to help keep melt rates down but recent summers have shown the ice now being badly impacted by such systems? Recent summers have seen a lot more HP systems over the basin that we have seen so far this summer and I have to wonder whether we are still seeing the knock on effects of all that extra melt last year? I had postulated that our summer (here in the UK) might not follow the trend of the post 07' summers due to the extra melt out of Arctic sea ice last summer and we do appear to have a different 'set up' over us for the past few months? Too soon to call it but I did moot a more HP dominated season for us ( thinking the extra 'changes' that last years record low placed into the system would demand the Jet positioning to be markedly different to the previous 6 years?). The folk who like to see low solar as the driver for a HP dominated N. Atlantic are going to have to do a bit of head scratching about why we are seeing such a situation over solar Max? Though 'clumsy' at best I can see the whole of the Jet pattern shifted East with the S.Greenland High of previous years now being responsible for our higher pressure regime and central Europe picking up the trough that used to sit to our SW the past 6 summers? Back to the ice and what we can expect up there? I think that if we see another 2 months of central pack LP systems that we will begin to see very high loss days as the ice becomes ever more battered and it's surface to mass ratio plummets allowing for very rapid Ablation? The wind field will also push the ice out of the central region and into the fringe regions (now snow cover of the land there has plummeted into neg anom figures from showing positive anom figures....all over 6 weeks???) that will now be warmed by the rapidly heating inner continents.? It would be the greatest of all ironies to see a season dominated by LP systems, that once would have produced high ice levels come Sept ,be responsible for another across the board record ice loss year?

Looks like SAC13's damage is now able to be seen by the sensors? Looks like we' will be following 2012's line through the rest of June? Possibly steeper as the sun takes effect and the slightly larger SAC13(2) again hits the central pack (what happened to the days when a Low Pressure system meant cloud and reduced melt and not fragmentation , open water and small floes tossed by 100kph winds until melted.....plus eckman pumping of lower waters to the surface????)

I have to wonder why it didn't used to do similar before? If it didn't then it has to point toward more energy in the system being there to melt it all out??? EDIT: i think the guys crowing about how well the ice is doing have about 2 days left before we hit 2012's melt line (and follow it???). Better make the most of it guys! last chance 'till re-freeze.

OK , I think it is expected of me but should conditions be conducive ( nothing special , just average) then I'm thinking around 3.2 million? Should things edge toward a 'perfect storm'....not 07' type but high melt plus a couple of GAC12 type events through late July/Aug then sub 2 million is not off the cardfs ( for me?) As things stand I cannot see any synoptics putting us over 07's record min..... some folk might like to ponder why a 'perfect storm year' should be trumped by a bog standard Year?

Indeed Asia is seeing the same (if not worse?) impacts from the sulphates in their coal fired power stations pollution? Funny how some folk appear to reveal themselves as NIMBYs when it comes to AGW?

I'm sorry , I mustn't have made myself clear? The extra drop in sea ice last summer will surely have introduced 'more energy' into the system and , if so, 'ramped things up' a bit? If you look at a simple wave form when you increase the energy would you imagine that you alter amplitude and wavelength? As such the 'positioning of the trough that blighted our past 6 summers will have moved. If just amplitude (higher peaks) then the trough would have dug in to our SW again but as it is the 'wavelength' must also have been tweaked dragging the trough off to horizons new (yeah for us) but sadly this leaves a much bigger catchment area for the type of 'stuck' rains we experienced (some of our rains must have fallen over the N.Sea or Irish Sea and not in catchment basins. Place 'our' old pattern over Europe then they get far more of the rains over land? The other 'feature I am not seeing this year is the S.Greenland H.P. that helped with the 97% surface melt there last summer (and also the US drought/heatwaves and the 'block' that pushed sandy into that 'left hook' and into NYC)?

It's a puzzler eh? 1m ice, by it's very nature, would be set among lots of broken ice/open water (in the real world) so it would be difficult to tease apart the energy transfer through the ice from the 'seep' at the edges of floes? The fracture event has effectively made the pack into a 'grenade' with easily broken off small floes glued together by late formed ice. We can see this over the area that the small Arctic cyclone (SAC13?) loitered recently with stretches of open water between some very small (small enough to have been 'flipped' during the storm?) ice. This area now basks under the elongated H.P. system from Barentsz into East Siberian. When we hit the 'June Cliff' in melt levels we might find this event has played quite a large role in prepping the area for melt out? If this low wasn't enough we expect a 980mb low to have a thrash for a couple of days , before fizzling, later in the week?

I'd imagine only in that higher volumes lead to thicker ice? 1m ice has no issue allowing a good deal of light into the ocean below (hence those mega blooms on the ice base that teams discovered last summer?......which in themselves must lower the albedo of the ice above???) So , by late July a lot of the FY ice offers no protection to the waters below and so helps with the 'bottom melt' portion of the Season?

We are still in our current 'glacial Epoch' Mr D. but not currently 'an ice age'? It would appear that the formation of peat bogs was key in sequestering enough CO2, and safely storing it out of the carbon cycle, for the impacts of orbital forcings to lead to ice accumulation (and further reduction in global CO2 levels). Not only have we decided to replace the CO2 that the peat bogs 'locked away' with 'fossil' carbon cycle carbon but also to destroy over 25% of the planets peat reserves (allowing the warming planet to destroy the rest???) Should we remove one of the major CO2 soaks then we may well remove ourselves from this current Glacial Epoch?