Arctic Ice

[J10]

Latest Update, after the huge drops in Ice amounts during the mid point of this week, this rate of fall is now less than last year again. It now seems clear that the low point for 2008 will be below the 5m sqkm figure however, will it be below the average of 2005 and 2007 (4784844), it currently looks to be aorund the 4.7m sqkm figure so it may be just below this figure.

My next update will be on Monday, to take in the figures for the last day in August.

[Chris Knight]

Here's a site that may be of interest here - 2 simple interactive pages showing current ice and buoy positions, and a set of various GFS plots relating to the Arctic area. Example:

Enjoy.

[osmposm]

Latest Update, after the huge drops in Ice amounts during the mid point of this week, this rate of fall is now less than last year again....

Indeed, J1. On the IJIS/AMSR-E figures, the difference between the situation in 2007 & 2008 on the same date went right down to 404K km² on the 27th, then widened again to 438K on the 28th, and 451K on the 29th (still subject to revision) - there was an accelerated melt on these days in 2007.

However, last year the melt slowed right down again on the 31st, and then there was an ice growth for a couple of days on the 1st & 2nd Sept, so we may perhaps see a narrowing of the gap again in the next few days. Thereafter, last year the melt continued slowly, with occasional hiccups back up again, not finally reaching its lowest point until 24th September.

We will all be watching with interest what it chooses to do in Sept 2008.

Edited August 30, 2008 by osmposm

[stewfox]

According to the Daily Mail today the North Pole becomes a Island for the first time in History (150,000yrs or more)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...-ice-melts.html

Is this now true ???

Far more alarming if it is then some would suggest on here ??

Although if ice melts from the sea ,sea levels wont rise ?? Confused

[BUSHY]

"According to the Daily Mail today the North Pole becomes a Island for the first time in History (150,000yrs or more)"

A spurious and quite frankly ridiculous statement. What happened in the recent past is unknown never mind 150 000 years and their statement is bluntly - a load of camel dung. It does their cause no favours among the thinking community.

[stewfox]

"According to the Daily Mail today the North Pole becomes a Island for the first time in History (150,000yrs or more)"

A spurious and quite frankly ridiculous statement. What happened in the recent past is unknown never mind 150 000 years and their statement is bluntly - a load of camel dung. It does their cause no favours among the thinking community.

What about the photograph .half page spread

Whats that source ?

It clearly shows a ice free passage both sides, are you suggesting a blatant lie ?? regardless of the 150,000 comment

[millennia]

What about the photograph .half page spread

Whats that source ?

It clearly shows a ice free passage both sides, are you suggesting a blatant lie ?? regardless of the 150,000 comment

There's no lie about the photo it's the "human history" bit that's blx. Amundsen found the NW passage completely free of ice in 1908, who was around in Siberia to report if the same happened over there as well, and that is just a century not thousands of years. Are they saying this never happend in the MWP?

Gutter journalism and not even new - it was in the Independent yesterday. Now they are even copying crap.

Edited September 1, 2008 by millennia

[stewfox]

There's no lie about the photo it's the "human history" bit that's blx. Amundsen found the NW passage completely free of ice in 1908, who was around in Siberia to report if the same happened over there as well, and that is just a century not thousands of years. Are they saying this never happend in the MWP?

Gutter journalism and not even new - it was in the Independent yesterday. Now they are even copying crap.

So maybe a ice free passage both sides ,first time in at least 50yrs ?

[Iceberg]

Not a good article as the ice is still attached to greenland it's hardly an island. Also as the modis picture showed which I posted up awhile ago, the ice is actually like fractured glass atm in is broken up alot.

Still nice/concerning to hear the NISC expert say that both passages have opened.

[J10]

Figures in at the end of August and the final figure was 5,029,844sq km2 which was lower than predicted at the start of the month, which indicates that the Average thawing rate in 2008 in August was greater than any of the past 6 years.

In August 2008 the percentage loss was 30.18% of that at the start of the month, representing 2,173,750sqkm2. The 2007 comparative figures were 27.74% in percentage terms and 1,768,282sqkm2 in absolute terms.

The current rate of thawing though is generally slowing. As for the final year end figure the high point figure can be discounted, the midpoint is 4,797,968sqkm2 and the low estimate is 4,645,061sqkm2, although if the rate of decline is greater than last year, it may fall below this.

[osmposm]

Amundsen found the NW passage completely free of ice in 1908......

I answered this same statement of yours fully here three or four days ago, but since you obviously missed it, here it is again:

Millennia, you're not seriously suggesting that Amundsen's slow, careful picking of his way through the shallow southerly passage over two years in 1903-1905 compares with last year's full opening of the northerly deep water passage, are you? 1908, incidentally, was not the date of his "log", but the publication date of the English translation of his 1907 account of the voyage.

Amundsen's little 70 ft sealer Gjoa was specially ice-strengthened, by the way, and spent two winters locked in ice en route at the harbour now named after it. The start at the eastern end of the passage was straightforward: Amundsen said - and I presume that your quote also relates to this stage - that it "resembled a holiday excursion". But he added that the rest, he was certain, would not be so easy. And so it proved.

Less than a month after starting, on Sept 12 1903, Amundsen, sensing the advent of harder conditions, decided to lay up for the winter; they were frozen in by early October. They stayed there for nearly two years, engaged upon scientific study and learning Inuit ways, only setting off to the west again in August 1905. They successfully negotiated the rest of the shallow passage - as little as three feet deep in places - and cleared the Archipelago on the 17th. The full NW passage was technically not complete, however, and another winter was spent locked in ice in 1905-6 before they rounded the coast of Alaska and into the Bering Sea in the summer of 1906.

It's as well to investigate a little more deeply before posting somewhat misleading quotes.

Which I now need to alter slightly by changing "last years's full opening of the northerly deep water passage" to "the full opening of the northerly deep water passage both this year and last".

Edited September 2, 2008 by osmposm

[Iceberg]

Big fall to start September with. The latest value : 4,964,219 km2 (September 1, 2008)

This is approx 350K of last year.

Are we about to break our ice record according to CT ? it looks very much like it. BTW this is the same CT graph alot of people where using in March to say how much ice was around.

[Gray-Wolf]

Been fighting an infected PC for 2 days and so the last I looked ice loss had slowed down, a worry that it has picked up again as we are expecting some warm air up in some sectors for the next couple of weeks.

I may have to look back to the march sections of the thread to see how our impressions were back then compared to the 'reality'.

I seem to recall a bunch of folk being very confident about ice retention this past summer (esp. with ice extents up) and I'm wondering if witnessing such a phenomenal melt, on the back of an 'average' summer, has rattled their confidence in the 'normality' of the behaviour of arctic ice loss over the past 15 years....... or whether they too now have concerns?

[eddie]

Been fighting an infected PC for 2 days and so the last I looked ice loss had slowed down, a worry that it has picked up again as we are expecting some warm air up in some sectors for the next couple of weeks.

I may have to look back to the march sections of the thread to see how our impressions were back then compared to the 'reality'.

I seem to recall a bunch of folk being very confident about ice retention this past summer (esp. with ice extents up) and I'm wondering if witnessing such a phenomenal melt, on the back of an 'average' summer, has rattled their confidence in the 'normality' of the behaviour of arctic ice loss over the past 15 years....... or whether they too now have concerns?

I fully expected that this year's minimum ice extent would larger than last year's. The experts told us that the ice loss was partially due to exceptional synoptics and so I thought it was unlikely that we would see the same amount of ice lost this year.

I expected at least a partial return towards the ever decreasing mean, in line with the predictions of the arctic summer being ice free around 2040 or thereabouts.

I was wrong and I admit it!

GW, what do predict for next year's minimum ice extent?

[laserguy]

http://polardefenseproject.org/blog/?p=153

Heh,looks like the kayak guy's got stuck in ice with about 600 miles to go before the pole.

[Mondy]

"Each time I return to the Arctic, I am shocked by how much ice has melted and how rapidly it's happening."

...and now this.

"We're stuck"

..and there's more:

Instead the ship’s engine roars to life earlier than normal - at around 5.30 - and the MV ‘Havsel’ begins to judder ominously.

All that pollution from the ship

Edited September 3, 2008 by Delta X-Ray

[pottyprof]

"Each time I return to the Arctic, I am shocked by how much ice has melted and how rapidly it's happening."

...and now this.

"We're stuck"

..and there's more:

All that pollution from the ship

Super stuff..

But you left out this....

One thing that strikes me is the change in the sea ice when I compare it to my Arctic trip last year. Last year at this latitude (around 82°C North) I saw lots of three meter thick ice - multi-year ice. This year, out in the kayak, I am only paddling past single-year ice which is significantly thinner, about one metre in depth. It is no surprise to me this is a record-setting year for thinness of Arctic summer sea ice.

See what happens over the rest of the month..

[osmposm]

I fully expected that this year's minimum ice extent would larger than last year's........I was wrong and I admit it!

Hold on, Eddie, it hasn't got there yet.....and may possibly still not do so, though it's not looking good.

As of the 2nd Sept, by the IJIS/AMSR-E figures that Jackone regularly posts, we were just under 670,000 km² above last year's minimum of around four and a quarter million km², reached on Sept 24.

We are currently running at slightly over 300,000 km² above the extent on the same date last year. This has narrowed markedly in the last couple of days, not least because last year's ice cover briefly blipped upwards on 2nd Sept, before resuming a slow and irregular downward path.

(You can see the figures & the comparison graph here: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm )

Edited September 3, 2008 by osmposm

[Gray-Wolf]

Hold on, Eddie, it hasn't got there yet.....and may possibly still not do so, though it's not looking good.

As of the 2nd Sept, by the IJIS/AMSR-E figures that Jackone regularly posts, we were just under 670,000 km² above last year's minimum of around four and a quarter million km², reached on Sept 24.

We are currently running at slightly over 300,000 km² above the extent on the same date last year. This has narrowed markedly in the last couple of days, not least because last year's ice cover briefly blipped upwards on 2nd Sept, before resuming a slow and irregular downward path.

(You can see the figures & the comparison graph here: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm )

"Hold on".................

Maybe if you trawled through the records you'll find a season with similar 'average' conditions throughout the melt season. You could then look at the ice melt in those seasons as it should surely be the same?.................. I bet it isn't by a country mile

GW, what do predict for next year's minimum ice extent?

I'd expect more of the same. Because we are still loosing perennial pack we must surely expect the same level of full 'melt out' of it and ,as such, we will fall well below the old '2005' marker for min ice levels.

We will hold onto some fringes of single year but this 'addition' to perrenial will not balence out the continued losses (and the 'new' perennial will be very thin even after 2 years, some not making the old 'single year ' thickness of 2m).

If we have another 'perfect storm' up there I'd imagine a 90%+ total melt out by end of season.

EDIT: Just in case 'lurkers' misconstrue............this was never a competition (though some friendly 'wagers' were on offer), this season was about our individual 'understanding' of the situation in the Arctic and the thermodynamics of the warm water/thin ice that now resides there.

Edited September 4, 2008 by Gray-Wolf

[Roger J Smith]

If somebody could devise a map comparing ice coverage this year on today's date and last year, I think it would show that the ice has melted more extensively on the Novaya Zemlya side of the basin and less extensively on the Wrangel Island side. Other sectors, I don't recall the specifics, but that's what I think we would see.

Another difference is that water temperatures were being reported as 5-8 C in the Chukchi to Beaufort sector, and this year it is closer to 3-4 C.

This leads me to believe that we may be closer to the seasonal ice minimum today than we were on this date last year (I think it was around 24 September).

However, the ice loss around Novaya Zemlya may be more difficult to replace with a warm air flow and current usually available in that region as compared to where last year's ice loss approached 84 N at 160 E.

But pretty soon, it will be rebound time again, and that will be the really interesting part of this ongoing drama.

[Chris Knight]

If somebody could devise a map comparing ice coverage this year on today's date and last year, I think it would show that the ice has melted more extensively on the Novaya Zemlya side of the basin and less extensively on the Wrangel Island side. Other sectors, I don't recall the specifics, but that's what I think we would see.

Another difference is that water temperatures were being reported as 5-8 C in the Chukchi to Beaufort sector, and this year it is closer to 3-4 C.

This leads me to believe that we may be closer to the seasonal ice minimum today than we were on this date last year (I think it was around 24 September).

However, the ice loss around Novaya Zemlya may be more difficult to replace with a warm air flow and current usually available in that region as compared to where last year's ice loss approached 84 N at 160 E.

But pretty soon, it will be rebound time again, and that will be the really interesting part of this ongoing drama.

Your wish...

SSTs?

[osmposm]

"Hold on".................

Maybe if you trawled through the records you'll find a season with similar 'average' conditions throughout the melt season. You could then look at the ice melt in those seasons as it should surely be the same?.................. I bet it isn't by a country mile

G-W, all I said was it hasn't quite happened yet....and at this stage I wouldn't put a farthing on it not happening, whatever odds were offered! But, as both sides of the hyper ice melt & ongoing GW arguments have occasionally demonstrated (and you must know by now which side I'm on), it can be unwise to make predictions of precise future conditions.

The quoted melt has slowed again (for a while at least) - between the Sept 2nd & 3rd it was just 12,600 km², probably the smallest daily drop since the rise on June 1st-2nd (I discount, perhaps unfairly, a suspicious-looking figure for August 8th).

So, um, yes...hold on...whoah, easy tiger...gently, bently...don't jump the gun. And no predictions from me!

[Mondy]

Nice comment left on this kayakers blog...bet he feels somewhat silly.

Lewis,

I'm afraid that you are looking to hard for something that is not there. We are currently at the end of a warming period, actually at the begining of a cooling period. There is much scientific evidence to support this. There has been NO warming since 1998. Stay safe, its cold out there

[Mondy]

Actually, those championing him or giving a seal of approval to his research, could do with searching the vessel he used. tut, tut! What will Greenpeace and others make of that?

MV ‘Havsel’

Kayakers Vessel

Nice comment left on this kayakers blog...bet he feels somewhat silly.

:lol:

I also see this comment was removed.

[Roger J Smith]

Very good graphic, Chris, you can't miss that shift in the centre of gravity of the ice ... looks from today's maps as though northern Canada is quickly falling below freezing and so this trend of regional change may accelerate, especially if Hanna and/or Ike decide to move north of Iceland in their filling phases.