Latest Antarctic Ice Reports

[Gray-Wolf]

The 'ice spit' to the front of Pine Island has now begun to fragment/float off. We must (I believe) be aware that we are at Full moon again and I can't discount the high tides playing a part in 'floating off' sections of coasdtal ice (in the way of the Aug 28th 'fragmentation' event) I'll try and get a meaningful image of the Pine Island fragmentation when I have a mo. .Remember the image will only be 12hrs older than the ones above (not into todays beyond 6:15 at the mo!) but you can see what 12hrs means down there too!

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Southern Hemisphere sea ice retention continues to be very impressive. Now higher than last year.

[Gray-Wolf]

Heavy storm over the Ross Embayment today, will take a look tomorrow after the swell has died down but it'll leave a mess! Another storm is occuring over the continent from Ross so the last 2 areas of ice (Ross and Weddell) look to be in for a 'smashing time'.

[oldsnowywizard]

Heavy storm over the Ross Embayment today, will take a look tomorrow after the swell has died down but it'll leave a mess! Another storm is occuring over the continent from Ross so the last 2 areas of ice (Ross and Weddell) look to be in for a 'smashing time'.

yes 930 milibars! thats quite a storm... it may even be lower than that... whats the record?

[oldsnowywizard]

you could get dizzy watching the storms just continue rolling around Antartica.. no wonder these waters are so dangerous!

GW some serious damage done to the ice due to the storm the other day... if the above happen then a major decline in the ice should happen.. i guess it could help some areas that get a dumping of the white stuff. although as we appraich the summer down there snow wont be as frquent..more rain..

[Gray-Wolf]

If you can imagine 'oil smoothing troubled waters' then you can appreciate the 'dampening effect' of contiguous ice cover in protecting the shelf/Glacier snouts from the mechanical erosion storm swells bring with them. There is also the matter of the warm water dragged down south and the warm sectors drifting overland.

We have buds in N.Z. and they've been taking a bit of a bettering this southern spring! Plenty of wind and rain and not much 'spring'.

Sadly the bigger of the storms are generally very cloudy so you have to wait a day or so to see the damage but at this time of year,with the pack well broken and adrift, you can see how quickly it can be shipped out into the southern oceans or driven up against itself further breaking the chunks into smaller clumps (which have a larger surface area as a proportion of their mass so ablate faster.

With Pine island already 'shedding' the different dynamic at the new ice front may lead to further failures there too.

Off to have a peepski!

[summer blizzard]

If you can imagine 'oil smoothing troubled waters' then you can appreciate the 'dampening effect' of contiguous ice cover in protecting the shelf/Glacier snouts from the mechanical erosion storm swells bring with them. There is also the matter of the warm water dragged down south and the warm sectors drifting overland.

We have buds in N.Z. and they've been taking a bit of a bettering this southern spring! Plenty of wind and rain and not much 'spring'.

Sadly the bigger of the storms are generally very cloudy so you have to wait a day or so to see the damage but at this time of year,with the pack well broken and adrift, you can see how quickly it can be shipped out into the southern oceans or driven up against itself further breaking the chunks into smaller clumps (which have a larger surface area as a proportion of their mass so ablate faster.

With Pine island already 'shedding' the different dynamic at the new ice front may lead to further failures there too.

Off to have a peepski!

Surely the ice pack being broken and melting further away from the coast will mean cooler seas and greater ice assuming a early/average freefreezing process??

[Gray-Wolf]

It's a very big Ocean down there and very thin ice! If we were to start pouring the ice from behind Ross into the oceans south of N.Z. then I would expect an anomaly but, seeing as the 'cold' water would sink ,I'd only expect to see the anomaly over continental shelf and ridges. How this 'bottom' freshening would impact the deep water oceanic currents is up for discussion. I'd expect that it would initaily speed up transit times for bottom waters which, in this warming world, would introduce warmer waters (from 50 or so years) into an already warming ocean which in turn would lead to less sea ice and accelerating glacier loss.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Very cold spring in the Antarctica. 500'000 square kilometers of additional ice over this time last year, which itself was a positive anomaly.

Enjoy

Edited November 10, 2007 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[PK2]

Any updates on the Antarctic ice? Also, Gray-Wolf, how do you find your way around the image website. I can't seem to work out which image relates to which location :blush:

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Just about above average still.

It's been 10 or 11 weeks since Antarctic sea ice levels were last below average.

[oldsnowywizard]

some colder than normal temps over the antartic at the moment... reports of -40 still.. not bad..

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfc...er_01b.fnl.html

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

some colder than normal temps over the antartic at the moment... reports of -40 still.. not bad..

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfc...er_01b.fnl.html

Wow, check out those -ve temp anomalies.

Perhaps the excess sea ice going into spring has reflected a lot of heat through increased albedo?

Will we get to 3 consecutive above average months for Antarctic sea ice?

[oldsnowywizard]

still widespread negative anomolies over Antarctica...

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfc...er_01b.fnl.html

and an increasing anomoly of sea ice.... suprised at this based on the fragmented sea ice GW posted.. one would assume that fragmented sea ice would melt faster?

question - does Antartica actually get warmer in the summer? from what i can see from the forecasts there seems to be really low -30 to -40s still, with a widespread are of -0 over the sea...?

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

and an increasing anomoly of sea ice.... suprised at this based on the fragmented sea ice GW posted.. one would assume that fragmented sea ice would melt faster?

I'm not an sea ice expert but I presume fragnmented sea ice going into summer is normal. Now we have satellite charts we notice these things.

Interesting the negative temp anomalies and positive sea ice is persisting into summer. More than interesting, it's amazing and opposite to what I expected.

[Gray-Wolf]

A funny thing happened on the way to the MODIS today...........

firstly i checked the 'Ross Decay site' to be met with a big splodge of 'data not available' in sight of the Mcmurdo base (the site is a NOAA site)

I then checked yesterday's images of Ross

Here's the 250m resolution

Soooo, U.S. site has no data yet, on their doorstep and in view, we find a large swathe of open water punched through the closely nestled bergs.

Hmmm thought I , Didn't we see this last Jan. with a cold water anom. facing the polynya? So I checked the sea temp. anoms and found

yet another strong cold water anom facing the gash in the southern ocean.

Firstly we are still faced with the data/visible image 'inconsistencies' with large swathes of open water being shown as 50% ice cover on C.T. (a simple sweep through the MODIS images will bare this out) but now we have NOAA saying they have no data for a gash that has manifested over 3 days and is plainly visible from their Antarctic base.

Am I truely loosing it or is something weird going on?

How many reports (baring B.A.S. pine island glacier calving) have we had since the start of this years 'premature' start to the ice fragmentation? Over the past 3 years we have had at least monthly revelations from Antarctica and now???

Last year I pointed out the cold water anoms spreading out of Ross and posted images as they moved north into equatorial waters (helping overturn the then El-Nino with the 'cold water upwelling' that was neither predicted nor expected) this year, 6 weeks earlier than last years 'start', are we seeing the same?

At the same time we have Piers Corbyn claiming a success of his solar forcasting methods as ,for the first time in 30 yrs, the Dutch lowered their coastal barrage (along with London). Folk on this site pooh,poohed his claims and J.H. posted the max gusts from the depression over the northern isles (none above 60MPH) which really is small beer for up there. The depression didn't track down the North Sea pushing a huge surge in front of it (as others have done) yet places were evacuated and all were on alert. Why? In previous years much worse storms (during high tides) have caused less alarm so what was different? Sea levels maybe. If you put a wadge atop of what we are told are current sea level heights then lesser storms cause greater problems (as we saw).

Did we witness a large meltwater outflow through Mcmurdo sound last year? if so why no reports?

Have sea levels risen by 5 to 7cm over the past 6 months ?(remember most coastal defences have been 'beefed up' around the U.K. and North seas coastlines over the last 5 years and so any sea level rises could remain un-noticed by 'Joe public' until a real high tide arrived)

Did the early fragmentation event in Antarctica reflect not an exceptional 'spring tide' but a normal spring tide in a 'higher ocean'?

Did the 'unexpected failure' at the pine glacier have more to do with the levering the higher seas place on the land juncture of the ice?

Maybe I've finally lost it but maybe we will be treated to more exceptional phenomena generated by normal events over this winter.

With the reports of the rising and falling of the E.A.I.S. (all 2 miles of it!) by the lakes below filling and draining and the 'new' sub ice sheet rivers and streams discovered over the last 3 years (coupled with the 'upland melting' of ice and snow as NASA showed) we are actually seeing/feeling the effects of this 'draining' of E.A.I.S.'s melt waters and their impacts globally whilst all the powers that be stay mute (whilst they hold the data).

If I'm a 'witness' and not a nutter then the effects will be unmistakable by the end of winter (and the 'spring Tides') as there will have been another sea level 'hike' by then but also you would expect to see collapses within E.A.I.S. as the caverns calved out by the meltwater fail and collapse.

So , time will tell whether I need 'assistance' or I need to keep on watching!

There you have it! GW gone mad........

Edited December 3, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

The area of greatest negative sea anomaly on the NOAA chart are next to the area where the sea ice is most extensive.

When the stored sea ice melts that releases ice water into the wider, warmer ocean.

I won't say you're mad but 3:1 on you're talking parrot food.

[Mondy]

Haven't checked back the last 10 pages on here, so unsure if this has been posted before.

While the news focus has been on the lowest ice extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979 for the Arctic, the Southern Hemisphere (Antarctica) has quietly set a new record for most ice extent since 1979.

[Gray-Wolf]

The area of greatest negative sea anomaly on the NOAA chart are next to the area where the sea ice is most extensive.

When the stored sea ice melts that releases ice water into the wider, warmer ocean.

I won't say you're mad but 3:1 on you're talking parrot food.

And the 'smudge' of yellow by Mcmurdo?

Positive sea temp anoms hard up against the coast and occupying the same areas as the clear waters that would swallow the UK?

We all know that the Antarctic melts from the coast out but does that involve positive anomalies year after year? (they wouldn't be an anomaly then would they?)

So why , two years running, do we see (and the anomaly will increase ,I guarantee!) such a phenomena. Especially in your 'cooling' southern oceans. And why then ,for two years running, are we seeing a negative anom. as we get into the 'tepid' waters of the southern 'southern oceans'?

I'll make another prediction, within 5 weeks you'll see a negative anom. pool off south island N.Z. (for the second year running) as the outflow is forced up over the Campbell plateau.

If these events were common place then they wouldn't be an anomaly would they (or am I wrong?).

Let's hope I am barking as I believe I could bare that better than you could bare being the 'common mouthpiece' for a poorly constructed subterfuge!

Haven't checked back the last 10 pages on here, so unsure if this has been posted before.

Hail and welcome Monders!

If you had read back you'd know this was a bit of a mute point (for me at least!!!) but it's another 'time will tell' conundrum and the 'time period' isn't that long 'till we find out whether the Laphroig/Talisker has rotted me head or summat queer is going on!

[Mondy]

Hehe! GW!

I know for a fact there is a ham radio op currently at McMurdo. For the life of me, i can't recall the callsign or associated website. I will eventually track the info down and post it.

Meantime, this chap is very much coastline Antartica. Nice site. http://www.gm0hcq.com/ Seems the ship is currently heading in the direction of said Peninsula: http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposit...phtml?call=zdlp

I'll get back to you with that info.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

And the 'smudge' of yellow by Mcmurdo?

That is simply a result of a lack of ice. That area is above zero celcius.

If you look in the archives at the Berlin site (back to 2003) there are bigger polynas in past years. The Antarctic ice melts in a patchy pattern.

[Gray-Wolf]

So the anomaly isn't an anomaly? A plus .5c in early december hard up against an ice shelf isn't worth the measurement? There has been open waters along the 'coastal strip' since October so why no anomaly then?(of course your site's don't see this do they?)

Edited December 3, 2007 by Gray-Wolf

[Mondy]

Goddamit! Having trouble finding this, GW.

I will. It's one of these lesser websites which displays info/data, but i can't flaming well remember the url or link.

Anything in here which helps you or AFT or anyone really to continue a nice little debate?

[Gray-Wolf]

Goddamit! Having trouble finding this, GW.

I will. It's one of these lesser websites which displays info/data, but i can't flaming well remember the url or link.

Anything in here which helps you or AFT or anyone really to continue a nice little debate?

Thanks a bundle Mondy !! Have you nothing better to do with your time???LOL

[oldsnowywizard]

wow very impressive compared to last year...

and yet again some very cold anomoly temps across the area.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfc...er_01b.fnl.html