Gray-Wolf

There seems to be a body of folk 'denying' that what we observe across the basin is nothing 'out of the ordinary' and merely a product of 'natural forcings' that have impacted the basin throughout human history. This body of folk appear to believe that a few cool summers across the basin will undo the damage to the old workings of the Basin and return things to normal over the course of a few years (well within the 'perfect storm' cycle of 10 to 20 yrs). At present those folk are gaining cheer from the 'extent' figures this early melt season and neglecting to mention the anomalous ice distribution , compared to the noughties, that the season began with. Throughout the noughties we mainly saw low ice in Baffin and Barentsz (and Kara?) with higher 'peripheral' ice amounts Okhotsk/Bering. This has added into the initial losses, aided and abetted by the AO's change of heart (keeping the cold inside the basin?) leaving extent figures ,for the time of year, above the noughties average? As the season progresses Barentsz/Baffin/Kara will become ice free and 'normal/average (or worse?)' extent figures will return. You may recall me warning this sites adherents to the above about the folly of parading high/average extent figures, come winters end, when most of the excess was positioned outside the basin. Over winter we have seen ice 'drift' into these regions (only for the central ice to re-grow). with the same synoptics in place but no ice formation these synoptics will lead to melt out of the peripheral regions and an opening up of the central pack. The early , and long lived. fracture event has compounded this by leaving the larger part of the pack in small floes cemented by late grown infill. As such i would expect to see ice losses around the periphery drop as normal but the central ice produce a lot more 'open water/leads' for this early in the season? The impact that peak insolation will have on a pack so stacked is open to conjecture but i suggest it will not lead to ice retention?

Hi sparks! June will act as June always does? When majority ice was 3m+ and perennial then we'd still have a lot of 'change' come July 1st. Average melt rates over the same period today (with predominantly 2m FY ice) will naturally leave us with a Swiss cheese pack. Current Synopitics hint at this impacting the central region badly this June and so I'm expecting a badly impacted central region allowing much more movement of the peripheral ice (re-compressing the central region?) so a very 'Topsy Turvey' extent couple of months once this central region is done with? My other point (earlier) is that we've needed wait for the 'Laptev Bite' to appear to see the central ice impacted in recent years (and not just nibbled away at the edges?) so how will this novel event now impact the pattern of ice loss? Will it enable peak insolation full access to the weakened ice in the central region region and the open water we are now seeing appearing there (due to the rotational stresses of the low)? EDIT: Thinking on it could this be the first year we see the DMI 80N not stick to freezing over the summer period??? How will the Deniers explain this if ice losses only 'equal ' last years efforts (ish)?

Yeah BFTV, The 'eckman pumping' gave me reason to head scratch esp. the 'scale' of the effect? I was trying to highlight the pack fragility and that we may well see a pool of low concentration ice/open water before most coastal areas are clear of ice? If you wanted to most efficiently melt out, via top melt, the pack then starting in the middle under the highest solar input and then working to the outer pack would be a novel but effective approach? In 4 or 5 days we might well see a lot of open water where the pack has been ripped apart and if the next low camps in a similar position, and does a similar job, we will have a very 'darkened' central region over the solstice? We will also now start to see the high temps that we currently do across NW Europe and into Eurasia seeping into the basin. If we still look to be holding onto the ice by June's end i will start to favour us ending higher than last summer (area) but I find it hard to believe that the next 3 weeks will see some very high melt rates? Hopefully we'll have had lots of 'Recovery ' type posts from all the usual suspects by then ?

Wipneus, over on Nevens, is churning out the AMSR2 data in image form and you can see in his latest (above) what the current L.P. is doing to the ice under it. Folk there , with more knowledge than I could claim to have, are talking about the 'eckman pumping' the low will induce( breaking through the halocline and placing the ice bottom in contact with much warmer waters?) so we should be expecting a crash in ice extent/concentration under the position of the low? With a pretty big HP then moving in our side of the Basin Barentsz and Kara look to have a couple of days of high melt before another LP takes up position over the pole? I knew this year must be different from recent years (due to last summers melt and late winter fragmentation) and I cannot recall other seasons starting with LP's over the pole?

I think some of the sensors are having issues with fog and low cloud? When you look at modis you can see through some of the murk to the ice below and the LP over the pole is starting to impact with a lot of dark water appearing? We look to move into a more settled picture next week so we should get a good look then (expect some pretty big drops though?).

Hi GD Snow! I'm also waiting for a 'shock' (glad if it does not appear needless to say?) But the state of the ice and past (6 yrs of low ice) experience warns me to look at the max ice loss period in mind of where we stand today? I will (honestly!!!) be greatly relieved if we do not drop below 07's 'perfect storm' losses but what does it tell us if we do? 07' was born out of a 'Perfect Storm', anything less than this 'collaboration of natural forcings' must raise questions as to what is happening across the Arctic Basin should we once again smash this 'record' year(Surely?) again? Should a 'slow start' lead to a 'record loss' what are we to think?

Though we're losing the 'whites' on MetO radar it still looks a tad damp under that blob? TBH, looking at the cloud band and it's movement I do think folk to the south of us (inc S. Yorks) are under the hammer from this but I do not recall any warning about this level of precip overnight??? EDIT: I take it we are missing a radar station in the NE North Sea? We appear to have the flanks ofthe wet weather on radar but the central core just keep appearing out of nowhere?

Well we know the N.S. is a tad chillier than it ought be but is this an air mass that has had some warming and evaporation in it's travels? The inner continent is heating up and a lot of the 'late snow' is now being 'zapped' so has the airmass been over modified (as opposed to the modelling) by late season ablation?

Hi Richie V! No Sferics associated with it (first thoughts also) but it appears embedded in the arc of cloud wrapped around the fading low. I just can't figure why so active? If it does track with the cloud (Jet steering???) then maybe i was a tad hasty as only S. Yorks look in the firing line(??) but I certainly didn't expect to see 'downpour' colours from the 'showers' we were expecting??? I'm gonna keep a weather eye for a couple of hours......things have been known to be 'outside the envelope', weather-wise, over the past few years and this claggy night mixed with some intense rainfall might bring a few ..... let's call them.... 'surprises'? EDIT: The funnel I saw repeatedly drop over Wakefield last year was also not on the cards but the dark, dank, weather was similar? Cold Arctic plunges and Tropical surges give the folk in tornado alley a queer time so why not here if AGW pushes us toward interactions 'twixt Polar and TM air masses? Here in the Calder Valley we see plenty of (what the media calls them) 'Mini Tornadoes' and I have a pet theory that these are formed by breaking waves (front squally fronts over the moors) swooping into the Valleys but being stood on end by some of the intercepting valleys that key in at 90 degrees to the main Valley (a rolling wave is dropped until near vertical?)....when I see 'White' on the MetO rainfall radar I always think either 'storm' or 'Squall line'.

Yeoh Yeo! whatcha on about Dude......

The thing those warmist commie (fatherless children) don't have data on is how the instant uploading of CO2 will have on the planet and in what time scales! In the past we see CO2 going up at like 56ppm per million years (or so) but we have done way more than that in less than a hundred years (now what's a hundred as a percentage of a million?). Surely great goddess climate won't notice the change at that rate of knots??? Prior CO2 forced warmings (like the PETM) had millions of years to accrue CO2 and so temps could keep pace with the game but this time??? Nah! Man is far to clevah, inject it in and by the time impacts take hold we're either long dead or some brain nut has it all sussed and we're sorted?

OK guys, WTF is that approaching from the north Sea and looking bound for us?

No stew but the reason the AO was different might? The late SSW/Final warming? may have played a part in this and the Jet's position is key for the 'jump off' of the warm air (over the tibetan plataeu?) so it's positioning also comes into play. I do not think we can deny that the year so far is not a re-run of the old 07' ice low synoptics?

https://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/papers2/deconto_nature.pdf I think that this paper raises a lot of interesting points on how the world 'cooled' to allow the initial glaciation of the southern continent and also how important the CO2 'feedback loop' was as the ice sheet grew. also note they used a decrease in CO2 ppm as 56ppm per million years.....compared that with the speed at which humanity is increasing the CO2 burden but also note at the speed of change then compared to the speed of change we have witnessed over 100yrs (instead of 'millions of years')

This was why this 'event' was picked up Pete, it happened 40 days or so before 'normal' spring fracture events occur (do you remember I used to highlight them under 'spring tide' fracture events?) and was far,far more extensive (as the Feb(?) NSIDC sea ice update highlighted? Apart for the temp/humidity issues over extensive leads that such fracturing presents we also have the loss of structural integrity that it beings to the pack. If you recall the 'leads' spiked right through the older,more complete ice as well as the peripheral 'shattered ice' from last years melt. Proof of the pudding will be the opening up of the pack as the younger 'infill ice' melts out through June (less than 30cm thick on average?) and what this mobility will do to export/ice flow over the rest of the season? The Russian team who are now set to evacuate chose their floe very carefully but this has also failed 3 months before the end date for the mission. Though melt season appears to be off to a slow start I have to believe that we face consequences from last years excessive melt. I think, to me, the different weather year we have seen in the UK so far (compared to the post 07' spring/early summers) confirms that we ought to expect 'difference' from the melt season this year compared to the other 'post 07'' years. This is also apparently being confirmed. With ice apparently losing thickness now (well in advance of past years) I would suggest that June will prove to be an interesting month for ice loss? Why not sit back and see what the current ,forecast, L.P. system does to the pack over the coming 7 days??

Do you imagine that any cracking event would 'follow thelines of least resistance ' Four or just plough through all and sundry? In areas of 'ice survival' I think that pressures of the ice would tend to rupture the thinner 'infill ice' to produce those tens of km wide leads we all witnessed?

The above is an enhanced image from earlier in May that 'A-Team' (over on 'Nevens' Blog) posted. Though every year leaves the pack scarred the amount of 'scar tissue' this year is very much an outlier over previous years. We are now entering the period of high loss from surface melt and the thin 'scar tissue' is not going to take long to melt out. This will then leave a very mobile ice pack with no stabilising contiguous ice cover over central regions. Though we have seen a slow start (so far) to the melt season (cool temps and ice positioning?.....no extra ice in Bering but over Barentsz/Kara instead?) I am now holding my breath for the upcoming melt onslaught with hopes that weather will intervene and give us the 'rebound year' that many have decided must occur this summer. I cannot change my mind on the seasons outcome (new record low area/volume) so for me to have it right would suggest some serious melt days ahead?

So? Has anyone noticed a different 'trend' to recent springs thus far? I do not know whether I have convinced myself or whether my observations are 'true' (you can help me here!) but I think I am seeing far more H.P. Influence since March and a reluctance for any L.P. events to 'linger' over us leading to prolonged rainfall and over-saturation of the earth (not our Moors at least!). When we look further afield we see the continental H.P. systems beginning to impact with Siberia now rapidly losing it's excess snow cover (and then the impacts this snow loss has on coastal sea ice will begin) but we appear to has mislaid the 'novel' H.P. from over Southern Greenland (keeping cool temps across W.Greenland at odds with recent summers). As the inner continents now heat up I wonder if we will see a very hot summer developing for the majority of N.Hemisphere land masses?

I have to wonder about the impacts on N.Hemisphere circulation that summer ice loss installs? The evidence for it's impacts ,year round, have been compelling so the added impacts of last years 'drop' must have impact above and beyond what we had seen recently? I know that the year so far in the UK has been markedly different to the 'stuck' weather that brought so much cloud/rain/flooding over past spring/summers with High pressure seeming to be the dominant feature? Greenland's 'anomalous' Southern High Pressure also seems unwilling to impose itself as it had over past summers? With the poor state of the ice pack in the Arctic Basin I wonder how long it will be before we see temp anoms ,driven by melt out, again impacting coastal Greenland. Though things are looking better than they were, and ice loss in the Arctic appears slow, I'm waiting for the sucker punch that last years record ice losses have placed into the system and feel that June/July will be when the blow is delivered (but please let that mean a 3 month heatwave for us????)

The Russians have been deploying a station for 40yrs Four. Apparently other 'rescues' have been over high summer as the floe is lost to Fram and the ice melts out due to location? Last year they were forced to go looking for the floe at sea whereas 'normally' they would choose a floe from shore observations. They spent a long while looking for a suitable flow and had already had to move the station due to a partial break up of the floe? I'd remind you again Four, just because something has happened before doesn't make it 'normal' or 'natural'. We always need look at the individual circumstances driving an event to see whether it is 'similar' to other occurrences? EDIT: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicespddrf/nowcast/icespddrf2013052418_2013060100_035_arcticicespddrf.001.gif Now there's a very symmetrically pleasing image!!! Is it possible that we will see this formation as 'the new' summer phase of the Arctic with L.P. systems being drawn into the central polar region (with the help of the planets orbital spin) flinging well fragmented ice out to the peripheries and melt? Let us see what this week brings in terms of ice behaviour and the extended forecast for the L.P.'s behaviour into June? We also need to think about where the advected air is bound and also who is to 'benefit' from the air expelled from the Arctic.

I suppose the next week will give us opportunity to see how the central ice acts under a 990mb depression for 4 or 5 days? I just had a read of 'Nevens' sea ice update http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/ and the image that 'A Team' posted of a recent sat image (enhanced to highlight the cracks) in the Beaufort Sea area must remind us that not only do we have thin ice again this year but that it also underwent mass deformation through February. Just the pressure drop will lead to ice breaks (never mind the full moon tides?) but if we see gusty enough conditions we may see the pack pushed out towards the warmer coastal regions? As BFTV says if things don't change over the next week maybe we might need to look for explanations?

Some folk call Australia 'the second arctic' due to the speed at which change is impacting there? Once the Arctic Sea ice has gone all eyes will be on Australia to see how AGW consumes a continent.

Wouldn't the ammo from the alps fighting in WW1 have been dug back into recesses for both protection and storage? Are we not seeing 'ice bunkers' melt out of the snow?

Looks like melt season has begun?

Thanks for that knocker! There are many areas of climate 'dismissed' as 'normal' because the event has occurred before. The folk doing the 'dismissing' never put into context past occurrences so more research like this would place a divide between past 'natural' expressions of weather and today's 'forced' patterns?