Carinth's Arctic Sea Ice Watch Thread

[Duncan McAlister]

There is little point in constantly beating ourselves up over the relatively slow growth in ice this autumn.

The key numbers are - what we started with (a higher number than 2007 or 2008) - and what we end up with (we will not find this out until next March!).

What happens at the beginning of October is interesting but, in my view, not really important as ice growth will, inevitably, get going shortly. The rate of growth in any year is largely dicatated the prevailing weather conditions and sea temperatures, which always makes any ongoing year to year comparison quite difficult.

Be patient.

MM

Exactly, when people pointed out the rapid increase in growth in 2007 and 08 they were told by the pessimists that this wasn't important, damage already done etc.

[stewfox]

There is little point in constantly beating ourselves up over the relatively slow growth in ice this autumn.

The key numbers are - what we started with (a higher number than 2007 or 2008) - and what we end up with (we will not find this out until next March!).

Be patient.

Final figure 14.54m on March 15th 2010 my punt

Who is going to run the book then ?

[Mondy]

Here we go again...Arctic to be ice-free by 10 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8307272.stm

Absolute jokers.

[Snow Leopard]

Here we go again...Arctic to be ice-free by 10 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8307272.stm

Absolute jokers.

Biased reporting at its best. Anyone see this article in the Telegraph which was pretty much buried at the time.

Climate Change Chicanery

[SteveB]

Biased reporting at its best. Anyone see this article in the Telegraph which was pretty much buried at the time.

Climate Change Chicanery

That article is quality,it just beggers believe that people still believe man is behind global warming.

But it takes all sorts to make the world go around.

[jethro]

Can we keep the climate change stuff to the other Arctic ice thread in the CC forum please folks.

Ta muchly.

[SteveB]

Can we keep the climate change stuff to the other Arctic ice thread in the CC forum please folks.

Ta muchly.

Yep sorry, feel free to move my post.

[carinthian]

Todays latest images show a significant increase in ice during the past week in the East Siberian Sea.The delay in the build up of ice in the other Russian sectors continues with slow growth this week in the North American sectors. The Greenland Sea development is quite impressive so far this season with drift ice now as expected to be as far south as Scorsby Sund. Some glacier bergs now entering the Denmark Straight, pushed on by the East Greenland current.

C

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

Todays latest images show a significant increase in ice during the past week in the East Siberian Sea.The delay in the build up of ice in the other Russian sectors continues with slow growth this week in the North American sectors. The Greenland Sea development is quite impressive so far this season with drift ice now as expected to be as far south as Scorsby Sund. Some glacier bergs now entering the Denmark Straight, pushed on by the East Greenland current.

C

As other posters have said, it will be interesting to see what the final figure in March is. At the same time, due to the rebound of the last 2 years, multi year ice is on the rebound.

[oldsnowywizard]

As suggested on a previous post (which got slated for some reason? not sure why as i was merely stating current conditions and its impact on ice growth????) the poor 850 temps and milder than average conditions have resulted in a slower than normal ice growth.. (im sure warmer ssts in the area havent helped either).. forecast is for some much improved 850 temps and also 2m temps so we should see a significant vertical climb in sea ice.... HP is in charge and will be for some time. Whats is interesting is the large Cold pool over Russian sectors... some early -30 temps forecast.. with HP dominating here too the cold pool just grows and is much larger than anythign in the archives for the last 8 years or so..

just a reminder these are current and forecast conditions...

[J10]

Is there any reason why the cryosphere today website is not updating.

From External Source

Cryosphere Today hasn't updated for over a week now. They had a disk fail on their server and the RAID array didn't rebuild when the disk was replaced. There's been no response to my recent request for a progress report.

[cyclonic happiness]

This site isn't as informative but it shows ice cover and snow cover.

hope it helps?

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/

[mcboz]

In response to Jackone's question there's a comment on Cryosphere Today:

"We are recovering from a server disk failure and hope to be updating images and timeseries graphs in the near future. Thanks for your patience." (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/)

Does seem to be taking a very long time to recover, bit like the ice really!

[The Eagle]

Not sure how accurate it is but this snow and ice animation shows the growth in the last month

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/loop/asia-1mo-loop.html

[DerbyshireSnow]

In response to Jackone's question there's a comment on Cryosphere Today:

"We are recovering from a server disk failure and hope to be updating images and timeseries graphs in the near future. Thanks for your patience." (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/)

Does seem to be taking a very long time to recover, bit like the ice really!

Back up & running today - showing a decent recovery in ice since it went off-line

[carinthian]

A big change in Siberia over the past week. Looks like a fairly intense cold spell developing. Met Charts are notoriously spare and hard to obtain from this part of the world. However,there is a good spread of Upper Air Sounding stretching from the Arctic Rim and into the interior. At Verkhoyansk the present average surface temp is -32C. During the whole of October the mean range drops from -5C at the beginning to -25C at the end. So presently, temps are colder than normal. The upper cold pool is extensive in the region, widely -25C at 850mb level. The flow pattern will send the cold wave towards the Northern reaches of Manchuria and Mongolia over the coming days. As a result of the intensifcation of the cold there has been a rapid formation of sea ice in ther Laptev and East Siberian Sea over the past 7 days.

C

[carinthian]

I thought you might find this sea ice map of interest. In the February of 1965 the polar ice cap locked into Northern Iceland, the following 3 winters saw the most southerly limit reached for nearly 50 years. Since peaking in the Spring of 1968 the ice limit has been in retreat ever since. The famous ice link of 1968 between Greenland and Iceland allowed polar bears to cross at will. Seems along way off since those days. It is also interesting to note that The British Isles has a sequence of cold winters during this period, particuarly in 1969.

Icebergs are fairly common in late October to pass close to the Icelandic coastline, however sea ice in these waters are normally brought into the system rather than being formed locally, apart from in very cold winters.

Ice cover is extremely variable as I keeping repeating "Ground truth" data is needed to compare with satellite images.

C

[phil nw.]

I thought you might find this sea ice map of interest. In the February of 1965 the polar ice cap locked into Northern Iceland, the following 3 winters saw the most southerly limit reached for nearly 50 years. Since peaking in the Spring of 1968 the ice limit has been in retreat ever since. The famous ice link of 1968 between Greenland and Iceland allowed polar bears to cross at will. Seems along way off since those days. It is also interesting to note that The British Isles has a sequence of cold winters during this period, particuarly in 1969.

Icebergs are fairly common in late October to pass close to the Icelandic coastline, however sea ice in these waters are normally brought into the system rather than being formed locally, apart from in very cold winters.

Ice cover is extremely variable as I keeping repeating "Ground truth" data is needed to compare with satellite images.

C

Thanks for that C.

I was discussing this with John H.a week or so ago in the Polar Low thread that was still active then.

I suggested that the Feb.69 P.Low was a particularly good one as in those 60`s Winters because, as i remembered, the Ice limit in Spring was close to Iceland and thus could have helped in giving the UK Colder Arctic air from those regions.

I couldn`t find the relevent link so i am pleased to see this.

Cheers,Phil.

Edited October 29, 2009 by phil n.warks.

[carinthian]

hi phil,

It was an exciting period working in the met office during those winters in the 60s. I do remember training

at the Met Office College and watching those polar lows move down from the Norwegian Sea in the Feb of 1969. Certainty dumped a lot of snow with associated low temperatures. Yes, I did get hooked on ice mapping during that period. Would love to see that bridging between Greenland and Iceland to happen again. It would send many on here to froth at the mouth, including me.

c

ps I am sure JH was on duty at Manchester Airport during one of those polar lows of feb 69.

C

[carinthian]

Good Morning, its always interesting at this time of the year to view the temperaure profile of the atmosphere in the interior Arctic. Verkhoyansk,one of the coldest places on the planet is in fact colder than the North Pole itself and this area is one of the feeding grounds for cold waves which can influence the severity of the freezing conditions in the Arctic Ocean and the North European plain.

This mornings soundings is a good example of winter conditioning in Siberia with surface temperature of -32C and temperature inversion, however it also clearly shows an upper air cold pool around the 850mb height at about -26C.

The record October low for Verkhoyansk is -44C, that is not going to be broken, but this a significant cold block in progress.

C

[Yozzer]

Nice view of the sea ice beginning to form at Barrow Point Alaska.

My link

[J10]

After a slow start a far more encouraging week for sea ice formation. Still below both short term and long term averages in terms of ice extent, but catching up on both over the past few days.

[phil nw.]

Compared to last year more Snowcover to our East and North and ice recovery continuing,although maybe a little behind 08 at present.

Hopefully the buildup of cold over USSR and Eastern Europe can continue under the High over there.

Edited November 5, 2009 by phil n.warks.