Polar Ice Extent

[cooling climate]

Probably means very little at the moment but the GFS in FI over the last couple of days showing a deep and

cold (+AO) low pressure development over the Arctic with 850's at -8c during the second week of July.

One to watch.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Probably means very little at the moment but the GFS in FI over the last couple of days showing a deep and

cold (+AO) low pressure development over the Arctic with 850's at -8c during the second week of July.

One to watch.

I think that's exactly what is needed now. Perfect timing for it too.

[Optimus Prime]

looking a bit wet up there now

'Up there' as in where?

[Android]

is that the north pole?

in any case whats that interesting looking yellow thing?

Edited June 26, 2010 by Android

[Gray-Wolf]

Yes, that's the 'North pole cam' and the 'yellow thing' is a buoy. It seems to be listing......

Edited June 27, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[J10]

Time for my first update on this thread for the summer.

Not good figures so far this month with the latest figures for the 26th June at 9,216,563, which is 700,736 below recent averages, and 1,436,171 below longer term averages. It is also the lowest on both series. So we are around 8 days ahead of recent averages in terms of ice loss. (i.e current figures = 5th July Average figures)

The next update will be a fortnight today, and hopefully we will see an improvement before then.

Re the Arctic web cams, a bit of background so we can compare this year to past years.

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-npole.shtml

[Optimus Prime]

Yes, that's the 'North pole cam' and the 'yellow thing' is a buoy. It seems to be listing......

But where the hell is the cam situated! In the middle of the north pole or on the edge of the ice sheet.

I really hate being misled by certain intentions.

[BornFromTheVoid]

But where the hell is the cam situated! In the middle of the north pole or on the edge of the ice sheet.

I really hate being misled by certain intentions.

The location data is all on this page http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

Maps and co-ordinates about half way down.

[4wd]

I suppose the buoy is listing due to the huge depth of ice pushing it up :lol:

Shallow pools on the surface are fairly normal and come and go through the summer.

They often disappear quite rapidly later on having melted through to the sea below - as they are then able to drain away.

So water on the surface can indicate a substantial ice depth remains.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Ice in the central basin looking even worse today. Extent plummeting at an astounding rate.

[Gray-Wolf]

I very much suspect this is just the begining NDS (as I've been saying all winter...lol) There is an awful lot of open water starting to show through and with so much sun around it'll make light work of any 'thin ice' out there and this ,in turn, will warm the waters to work on the thicker stuff. Not good at all really.

[Gray-Wolf]

Well ,apart from the pack going sub 10 million sq/km, we see the last peice of ice (the ice bridge at Melville Sound) giving way.

Many Deniers have been using the temps from this area to paint a picture of a 'cold pole' this spring so temps there must be increasing to give us

this;

http://rapidfire.sci...191000.250m.jpg

with the area of interest being central on the image. You can see the slabs falling off the ends of the impasse and the crevaces opening in the central area of the ice bridge.

The other thing is the amount of meltwater ponding across the high pole. Whilst this does not impact the 'extent' figure once the melt is through the ice the pack will dissappear rapidly (through July?) so be ready for another 'spurt ' in ice loss.

I take it all the 'recoverists' have taken off into hiding until October? ;-)

EDIT; Just found this showing the breaking up of the 'ice bridge'

http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b01348514684f970c-800wi

Edited June 29, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[4wd]

No, we just don't feel obliged to post on a daily basis with pictures highlighting some broken ice in one small corner. :unsure:

It's late June, it isn't hard to pick out places with rapid ice loss.

I see the Global Sea Ice area is about average still (and rising)

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

[BornFromTheVoid]

No, we just don't feel obliged to post on a daily basis with pictures highlighting some broken ice in one small corner. :unsure:

It's late June, it isn't hard to pick out places with rapid ice loss.

I see the Global Sea Ice area is about average still (and rising)

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

Does that graph not show below average and falling!?

Is it not better to have anomalously high ice extent in the respective hemispheres summer than winter, that way we could get some use from the ices albedo?

[sunny starry skies]

Yep, global sea ice area is clearly trending negative over the past decade, thanks 4wd for that graph. But there are physical reasons why sea ice in the Antarctic has been relatively high during austral winters, and increasing over the past decade - see this post in Skeptical Science for example, and the multiple peer-reviewed references within:

http://www.skeptical...increasing.html

and also

http://www.nasa.gov/...ic_melting.html

But the fundamental issue is not the global sea ice cover in itself, because you then are combining two systems in diametrically opposed seasons, with completely different systems at work. The Antarctic has it's ice located surrounding an ice-covered polar conteinent, with the ice located in a band of stormy ocean and two large embayments, very approxmately 60-80deg S. The Arctic has its ice in an almost enclosed polar ocean basin with a few other embayments and basins around. This ocean is under a completely different set of weather systems, and as the ice is dominantly between 70-90deg N, the sea ice lies within the polar weather systems. Add to that the fact that the Arctic ocean and weather systems play a strong direct role in our weather, being that we live quite close to it, and the decline in Arctic sea ice becomes all the more a big issue. I don't like the concept of turning a big shiny white bit of the NH dark for increasing periods of the Arctic summer. [and you can't do the same to the Antarctic!]

http://www.ijis.iarc...aice_extent.htm

Well below the previous record for this date, showing no signs of deceleration, and looking in a position to follow (be below? :lol:) the 2007 curve, unless something changes soon.

At Cryosphere Today, the north polar animation shows a rather concerning recent widespread increase in colour across large areas of the polar basin - sometimes these areas fade back to darker, healthier colours, but if this is a prelude to widespread ice loss then 2007's extent is well within reach. We'll see soon enough:(. The darker-coloured ice is flowing freely out of the Nares Strait and between Greenland and Spitzbergen - this highlights the two dangers to the ice cover. The key uncertainty is the weatehr patterns - will they, as they are at present, exacerbate the melting, or will they become more conducive to retention of ice? We can only hope they become more conducive to ice retention quickly!

http://arctic.atmos....edu/cryosphere/

Here's David Barber's plenary from the recent IPY conference in Oslo, which contains some lovely indications on the state of what was thought to be old multiyear ice (the talk has a load of intros, Barber stats speaking about 12 mins in). Apologies if it's already been posted!

http://video.hint.no...sc/?vid=55&ti=4

The discussion on the fracturability of apparently old sea ice floes fits well with the animation G-W posted above.

Also, good discussion of what happens with the melt ponds. 4wd, you'll be interested in that given your comment earlier - the ice beneath the melt ponds is thinner, not thicker, than the ice around the melt ponds.

sss

[Gray-Wolf]

We've been shedding 0.1 million sq km a day for some time now 4wd , why will this slow over the next 6 weeks of high summer? that's 1 million every 10 days and a finish in mid Sept. Things will get faster then slower (not that much slower if the perennial collapse cannot occur this year to bolster 'extent' in late Aug/Early Sept) so 0.1 per day seems fair. Where does that take us over the next 60 days, or so, 4wd? Do the math (V.P. will be proud of you!) and tell us what you make it. :lol:

Edited June 29, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[Gray-Wolf]

The north pole cam now shows the melt ponds draining so the ice there cannot be very thick or an old lead has now re-opened and is allowing the water to drain off.

[4wd]

It seemed to freeze over again yesterday.

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2010/images/noaa2-2010-0629-194539.jpg

Has there been a little fresh snow too?

[Gray-Wolf]

It seemed to freeze over again yesterday.

http://www.arctic.no...0629-194539.jpg

Has there been a little fresh snow too?

Each cam has an attached weather station and it looks toasty up there right now (for the pole....or 2 degrees south of it now....Boy those Buoys move!!) with -0.3c the coldest they seem to have mustered over the period. We will see over the next few days whether the ice has given way (draining the pools) but it's worth watching that big yellow buoy as it was rather drunk on Sunday and it seems to have sobered up today........it may be totally afloat tomorrow!

[Gray-Wolf]

This may sound odd but I'm now becoming concerned at the number of papers/science blogs that are echoing my concerns of the past 4 years.

The latest is the lack of ice to the north of Greenland/Canadian Archipelago and it's effect on the Arctic Basin ice. Once upon a time this area caused a log jam of ice (driven by both the Arctic Gyre and the Transarctic current) giving the perfect environment for ice to be compressed /ride over ice to build the 'old perennial'. this year there is so little ice that all is occuring is increased fragmentation of the ice as it bumps into itself.

We've now moved from having an Arctic ice 'condenser' into an Arctic ice 'grinder'.

I really do think that this is the swan song of the Old Arctic.

[MR EXTREMES]

It seemed to freeze over again yesterday.

http://www.arctic.no...0629-194539.jpg

Has there been a little fresh snow too?

yep i noticed on the watts up with that site,

there has been a lil upturn easy to scream doom but not easy to predict what will happen next.

Edited July 1, 2010 by badboy657

[Gray-Wolf]

Everythings alright then B.B.?

Though June saw the records tumbling this is July (the main melt month) so everything is OK.

Remember 15% ice cover is not solid ice so we can have 5/6ths of the ice melt and it not show on the extent (which is what it continues to do) . Once we get down to very thin ice then you will see it plainly on the sat images, at the moment all you see is ever more fragmented pack and growing meltwater pools.

Far more exciting watching the NW Passage (deep channel) open up over 6 weeks earlier than it did in 07'!!!!

[4wd]

Just as 2006 and 2007 lines crossed paths but then had very different outcomes, you really can't predict half as easily as some think.

There's a certain amount of ice will melt quite easily and then it gets slower.

Some years it can start to cool significantly by August - it's mainly down to localised weather and not much to do with climate at all.

[Gray-Wolf]

4wd. Have we been loosing ice volume over the past 100yrs or so?

If so when do you figure the loss gets to critical levels?

We have less ice in the Arctic basin today than we have ever measured before. So little that IceArches/ice bridges no longer form to block the ice from bleeding out into the Atlantic and so little ice around the north of Greenland/Canadian Archipelago that the ice 'thickening' process is not occuring this year.

With even less ice will things become better or worse 4wd???

Do you think that the ice volume measure will be up or down on previous years come sept (and not 'extent' which can vary even with the same amount of ice volume year to year) and if you accept the continued downward trend how do you see a B.A.U. Arctic when it is already so broken now?

Edited July 1, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[4wd]

Why should there be a "critical level"?

The slow decline has been going on (up and down) for decades as you point out every day.