Arctic Ice 2009

[Admiral_Bobski]

What's all that purple stuff over the anomalously warm methane clathrate fields of Siberian permafrost GW? B)

They must be growing grapes there - that's global warming for you!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

CB

[Gray-Wolf]

With all the recent talk about the Stratospheric MMW I got to wondering about it's impacts on the Pole itself. If we are to lose the polar Vortex, 6 weeks early, (and replace it with H.P.) do we not run the risk of a sunnier start to the melt season across the high pole?

We may (well ,some of us may) be looking for a 'Beasterly' to set in for the rest of Feb (in our location) but will this not impact upon the 'cold pool' across the pole if we drain it all down into the lower latitudes? and what will replace it 'oop north'?

To me a warm start to spring in the arctic (following such a warm autumn) with the prospect of early sunshine would not constitude the best of starts to the melt season (unless you want an ice free summer arctic by 2013 that is!)

[stewfox]

Just trying to find reasons why we are faced with the above at the end of January! All the folk bemoaning 'a cold winter' can see just where that cold is being displaced from! Not normal, not normal at all.

Agree the Antarctic looks much colder then it should be for this time of year :o

Edited February 5, 2009 by stewfox

[Gray-Wolf]

We've been hearing a lot about the SSW (MWW or even FW) recently and I was wondering the type of impact north of 60 degree could be. If a 'fat' strat has squished the trp below will that lead to a similar 'Boyle's law' warming across the pole? When the strat rebounds will this draw in air from further south? Will an early arctic H.P. lead to more sunshine at the start of melt? Will the areas external to the pole (Bering etc) be subjected to more storms over early spring?

Anyone know where to point me?

Ice levels still going sideways atm. We are (relatively) loosing ice compeered with recent years and do not look to copy last years 'late rally'.

[laserguy]

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent..._Ice_Extent.png

Whoaa... it's gone mad!

[stewfox]

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent..._Ice_Extent.png

Whoaa... it's gone mad!

A massive increase over a short time span

Any reason ?

[BARRY]

A massive increase over a short time span

Any reason ?

well barrow alaska has a temp of -41c today,i mean 5000 plus people live there how do the stick it

Edited February 9, 2009 by BARRY

[laserguy]

A massive increase over a short time span

Any reason ?

I caught a trailer the other day for a programme called 'Ways to Save the Planet' (chortle). There was a clip of some guys rolling out across the snow and ice what appeared to be a white carpet,with the commentary saying that it was to reflect sunlight and "stop the melt". That's the reason for the sudden upturn,it's so obvious when you think about it. Let's have a whipround to buy more carpet.

[Gray-Wolf]

The above is the most recent NSIDC plot. Don't ya just hate it when it does this?? I can never figure out who is most 'recent' in their data (I know C.T. is slowest).

We are getting to the time of year that framentation of the edges of the pack occurs and covers the 15% ocean (necessary to be included) as it drifts off. The only way to check is to physically look at the pack and ,seeing as it's still pretty dark most of the day up there, this is difficult. Check the sea areas that are not land bound for 'sudden spurts' and then MODIS to check for fragmentation.

I've also noticed, over 3 years I've been 'tuned in' to the notion, that the tides of the Full moon can correspond quite closely with 'spreading events' (both north and south) so we need to check coastal disruption and spreading too.

[Duncan McAlister]

Nature's Great Events on BBC 1 just now is showing the arctic melt tonight, with all the melt pools and cracks that we hear GW talking about every summer. Quite fascinating to see it in such detail

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

It looks as though the full moon disruption,and spreading of the fractured ice, has run it's course and the ice at the edges has drifted off (giving conc. of less than 15%) to melt.

I am convinced of the disruption of susceptable ice by the bulge of water the moon grags around the earth.At 'spring/Autumn' High tides this must be quite a big bulge and the thin skin off ice must break as the 'bulge' is dragged under it.

As I have said both North and south show this disruption prior to the melt. The south has always had mainly 'single year' ice which is a better vehicle to study the effect but, recently, the 'thin' polar ice has been equally disrupted.

I do not know what impact this has on the ice melt later but any fragments that can be transported away, post fracture event, leads to a marked increase of ice followed by the same pace of drop off of ice as it drifts further away from each other(as you see above).

Edited February 14, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[morfius]

There appears to have been a sudden rapid loss of half a million square kilometres in the last few days - any reason for this/weather events?

I think I heard something about record temperatures on the east Asian coast so perhaps these may have spread up to the Arctic to one of the areas where melting appears to have ocurred - between East Siberia and Alaska.

The below map illustrates it best

The main areas of break up appear to be:

• West Hudson with a smaller break up in the southern area.
  
• Southeastern coast of Victoria Island (possibly linked to Hudson)
  
• The large bay North of Japan's north island (i don't know the name)
  
• A N-S strip on the far east coast of Siberia
  
• Newfoundland
  
• A large area between Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya
  

Note - The bold coloured line represents the average extent for the particular time of year.

Just for a comparison, here is the state of the Arctic at the end of January.

Edited February 16, 2009 by morfius

[Gray-Wolf]

There has to be some kind of error there.All Ive said about Lunar fracture and drift would not account for this.I think we will find a different plot tomorrow (with less ice 'majiked' away)

If it prove factual we are in bad ,bad times (far excedeing my outlooks and they aren't the jolliest......)

[Iceberg]

The AMRS-E concurs that this is an out and out error with the NSIDC data.

thanks to Bremen.

[J10]

Latest update

The current level is rising slowly after falling off a bit from the high around the 10th Feb , the ice this year is now the 3rd highest in the series for this day, and is already above the high point seen in 2006 and 2007.

Arctic_Ice_Winter_2009.xls

[noggin]

This explains the "dodgy" data! We will have to wait and see what the true extent of the ice is. I wonder when they will have an update.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Edited February 19, 2009 by noggin

[Devonian]

This explains the "dodgy" data! We will have to wait and see what the true extent of the ice is. I wonder when they will have an update.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

It looks like a sensor on a satellite has failed. It thus has precisely zero to do with AGW, or 'Hansen' or 'Gore' - - but I'm sure some one, somewhere will try to make the association

[Kained]

It looks like a sensor on a satellite has failed. It thus has precisely zero to do with AGW, or 'Hansen' or 'Gore' - - but I'm sure some one, somewhere will try to make the association

You just did?

The issue is if that data has been used for research, the media has publicised it or it has be used to affect public policy.

It is good NSIDC have publicly acknowledged a problem, open honesty about data builds trust.

[Gray-Wolf]

You just did?

The issue is if that data has been used for research, the media has publicised it or it has be used to affect public policy.

It is good NSIDC have publicly acknowledged a problem, open honesty about data builds trust.

Agreed Kain! can do no better than work through honesty and love!!!!

[Devonian]

You just did?

Did I? I thought it was a prediction? And i could be wrong

The issue is if that data has been used for research, the media has publicised it or it has be used to affect public policy.

It wasn't. Oddly I posted to 'WUWT' a one sentence reply to it's first thread on the subject that the initially spotted big fall was obviously an error (because it was, ice simply doesn't melt like that in the winter) and my post was removed. I've no idea why.

It is good NSIDC have publicly acknowledged a problem, open honesty about data builds trust.

It does, it's what happens.

Edited February 19, 2009 by Devonian

[Iceberg]

Yep just to let people know this is only the SSI Data and not the AMRS-E data which Jackone uses these are on completely different sats. We can still see what the current state of the ice is.

Also for study purposes I would be surprised if many people still used the SSI data as it's not as accurate or as high res as the AMRS data.

We live in a world where people want there updates daily as soon as possible and unfortunately unless we agree to wait a month to have it all verified these things will happen, it's good that they noticed though.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Yes its good that these 'discrepancies' get noticed just like the temp fiasco last year. Because of alternative sites/data we are able to question the accuracy. I for one am very suspicious of these failures. Note I haven't called them 'mistakes'.

BFTP

[J10]

Yep just to let people know this is only the SSI Data and not the AMRS-E data which Jackone uses these are on completely different sats. We can still see what the current state of the ice is.

Also for study purposes I would be surprised if many people still used the SSI data as it's not as accurate or as high res as the AMRS data.

We live in a world where people want there updates daily as soon as possible and unfortunately unless we agree to wait a month to have it all verified these things will happen, it's good that they noticed though.

Indeed I can confirm this, the reason I use these figures is that it give s a daily representation that can easily compared and graphs produced etc.

[Gray-Wolf]

and now we have the two smashed up satellites floating, in many bits, around the 'technology' up there!!!! Ho Hum.

[Android]

This site says AMSR-E, but it's track seems to more closely follow the SSM/I:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

If you compare it to the comparison figure from the recent NSIDC article:

http://www.nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicene...217_Figure2.png

The NSIDC image shows sea ice extent from AMSR-E is near 15 million sqkm, wheras SSM/I has been around 14 million over feburary. The latter matches up with the IJIS site...