Arctic Ice Discussion

[stewfox]

The earliest sub 10M this century on the cards by tomorrow ??

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

[Gray-Wolf]

The earliest sub 10M this century on the cards by tomorrow ??

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

Well you are proved correct Stew! I didn't think that the melt would outstrip last years this early! I thought that late July/Early Aug would be when we saw the impacts of this years thin ice taking effect so now we have to pray for cold weather to somehow protect the central basin ice but I suspect that we will not get our prayers answered.

[Iceberg]

Thanks for that post I noticed that TWS, but was loath to mention it as I didn't was to seem to be a doom monger.

Looks to be largely synoptic based, which isn't what the weaker ice needed, hence the record low values for this time of year, it will take some recovery for the ice to be anything but in the lowest 5 years now.

[paul tall]

Sorry Ice , you'll need to be more specific as I'm not sure I know where 'Petterson' is ?I've noted the melt at the head of Petermann on the north coast of Greenland though?

http://www.woksat.info/etctf08/tf08-1101-c-grn-n.html

http://rapidfire.sci...184000.250m.jpg

and it seems odd that the sheltered N coast should be so melted out already???

Did you get a big box of question marks for your birthday or something?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Looks like the bridge across Nares is finally giving way.

[Gray-Wolf]

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/image_container.php

Yup! BFTV, only a full two months after I thought it'd go!!!

We can only hope that the rest of the basin proves as resilient?

And 'Yes' Paul Tall , yes I did ;-) ?????

[UV-RAY]

Looks like the bridge across Nares is finally giving way.

What an amazing picture.

[Nights King]

I love the picture!

So is it normal for nares to clear this early in the season?

Edited June 19, 2011 by mullender83

[Gray-Wolf]

I love the picture!

So is it normal for Nares to clear this early in the season?

http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/arctic_tipping_points_4_broken_bridges_nares

The above Blog will take you through the evolution of an 'open Nares' as we know it recently. I kinda think that we will have less 'bridges' from here on in. We may have 'ice Jams' if the Greenland Glaciers keep putting out ice islands like the ones last year but the sea ice is ever thinner and now we have the prospect of greater transport, through the Canadian Archipelago, of warm Pacific waters the odds of the southern section ever freezing look increasingly less likely.

[paul tall]

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/image_container.php

Yup! BFTV, only a full two months after I thought it'd go!!!

We can only hope that the rest of the basin proves as resilient?

And 'Yes' Paul Tall , yes I did ;-) ?????

Ah right, thought so.

Haven't been on here for a while, are we still doomed then?

[Turnedoutniceagain]

Ah right, thought so.

Haven't been on here for a while, are we still doomed then?

Nah, the anoraks on here just cut'n'paste the same dross year after year.

*yawn* :lazy: :lazy:

[paul tall]

http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/arctic_tipping_points_4_broken_bridges_nares

The above Blog will take you through the evolution of an 'open Nares' as we know it recently. I kinda think that we will have less 'bridges' from here on in.

You'd hope so wouldn't you, what with it being summer.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Well we're currently lowest on record by over 80,000km2 according to the IJIS site here. Closest to us is 2010, so I guess the repitition is true in the sense that we would have been saying the same thing last year :lol:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/image_container.php

Yup! BFTV, only a full two months after I thought it'd go!!!

We can only hope that the rest of the basin proves as resilient?

Will be interesting to see how the rest of the strait holds up, whether it crumbles and follows this large break-off or whether the ice has spent long enough in situ to thicken and solidify.

[Gray-Wolf]

Will be interesting to see how the rest of the strait holds up, whether it crumbles and follows this large break-off or whether the ice has spent long enough in situ to thicken and solidify.

I think the 'Ice Bridge' in that section is aided and abetted by freshwater outflow from the glaciers to the west? The ice further north is just sea ice from Lincoln in FY ice so I'd imagine that it will be broken and flowing within 3 weeks (but then I thought the 'Bridge' was going in April?).

I'm sorry that some folk do not share our enthusiasm for the radical changes we are witnessing in the basin. No man has had the unique opportunity to see what we ,via our scientific measurements, are witnessing. Like many of the folk whose interests have been piqued by the recent 15 years of rapid ice loss I do not look to far beyond the loss of our summer ice. the only 'Doom' I ever hear mentioned appears to arrive from folk who do not share our interest in these rapid alterations to temps and ice levels over summer/winter.

If I was to try and peek into the next 50 years I would ,no doubt, see radical alterations in both sea level and atmospheric CO2/Methane levels but what would be the point of doing so? It is enough to 'see' that these dangers already exist without poneing their potential. The folk who appeared 'frightened' of such a future are no use to any of us, we must live within the now and make best advantage of the changes we can see and predict surely?

First of the years meltwater ponds arrived last night at 7:30pm

Edited June 20, 2011 by Gray-Wolf

[Gray-Wolf]

Seems the 'ice bridge' wasn't that structural? I wonder if the 'squeeze' pressure between the sides of the straight Brought a little more integrity to it's structure?

[songster]

I wonder if the 'squeeze' pressure between the sides of the straight Brought a little more integrity to it's structure?

Um, that's how an arch works.

[Gray-Wolf]

Um, that's how an arch works.

Our Bridge in Hebden has Arches..........

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13829785

Seems the wait is over and the comp in the article is ready to give similar day to day data from now on.

[VillagePlank]

Arctic sea ice area decrease has been visible for two decades, and continues at a steady rate. Apart from melting, the southward drift through Fram Strait is the main loss. We present high resolution sea ice drift across 79° N from 2004 to 2010. The ice drift is based on radar satellite data and correspond well with variability in local geostrophic wind. The underlying current contributes with a constant southward speed close to 5 cm s−1, and drives about 33 % of the ice export. We use geostrophic winds derived from reanalysis data to calculate the Fram Strait ice area export back to 1957, finding that the sea ice area export recently is about 25 % larger than during the 1960′s. The increase in ice export occurred mostly during winter and is directly connected to higher southward ice drift velocities, due to stronger geostrophic winds. The increase in ice drift is large enough to counteract a decrease in ice concentration of the exported sea ice. Using storm tracking we link changes in geostrophic winds to more intense Nordic Sea low pressure systems. Annual sea ice export likely has a significant influence on the summer sea ice variability and we find low values in the 60′s, the late 80′s and 90′s, and particularly high values during 2005–2008. The study highlight the possible role of variability in ice export as an explanatory factor for understanding the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice the last decades.

Smedsrud, L. H., Sirevaag, A., Kloster, K., Sorteberg, A., and Sandven, S.: Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline, The Cryosphere Discuss., 5, 1311-1334, doi:10.5194/tcd-5-1311-2011, 2011

I'm sure it will all blow over ....

[Gowon]

Smedsrud, L. H., Sirevaag, A., Kloster, K., Sorteberg, A., and Sandven, S.: Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline, The Cryosphere Discuss., 5, 1311-1334, doi:10.5194/tcd-5-1311-2011, 2011

I'm sure it will all blow over ....

:lol:

Recent wind driven high sea ice export in the Fram Strait contributes to Arctic sea ice decline

Here's the actual peer reviewed paper; http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/5/1311/2011/tcd-5-1311-2011.pdf

[Gray-Wolf]

The important word being 'Contributes'. In-situ melt is still the largest ice 'loss' mechanism over the summer months and ,obviously, the thinner the ice the faster it melts.

The other observation is the speed of transport in the basin. Buoy data shows that the trip from the Siberian side to Fram used to take an average of 3.5 years but in 07' this was down to 18 months. Last winter I highlighted Pole Cam 2's voyage south (as some may recall) and it ended up in Fram by Jan/Feb (Feb if south of Svalbard is your measure). So geographic pole in Mid April to exiting the Arctic by Feb?

I'd hazard a guess that the mechanisms that used to 'interrupt' ice movement (Large expanses of Paleocrystic ice and ice Bridges/Arches Across part of the straight from Greenland to Svalbard) no longer exist so the ice no longer 'Jams' at the entrance to the straight. We also saw the loss of the 'fast ice' on the NE Tip of Greenland last year allowing more of the ice transported along the Northern coast of Greenland to exit via Fram (this used to be jammed with the Paleocrystic ice year round as Whaler logs show).

I'd also think that think that well fragmented ice moves faster than Deep Paleocrystic ice (with keels 10's of metres deep) when acted up on by the wind.

Though we know that Fram is a very important part of the Arctic ice losses the move from majority multiyear ice at ice max to majority first year ice has changed the Arctic as we knew it. In some ways this paper is a historical document looking at the final demise of the old Arctic system and ,as it highlights, new feedback mechanisms are altering the way we used to see the ice behave.

The 'New Arctic' also has the potential to open another 'Exit' from the basin (as we saw last summer) in the North West Passage Deep Channel. With the 'cleaning out' of the channels of their old ice (since 07') we now see Basin ice penetrating into the deep channel via the 3 feed channels (a passage that ,when combined , is up to 10 times the width of Nares which exported 10% of 07's losses!) into Viscount Melville and out via Baffin. The NW Passage looks set to be open earlier than any other year so far so we will see how much of the multiyear ice does favour this route out of the Basin. The Area to the North of the Canadian Archipelago used to be the 'Paleocrystic Nursery (along with South Beaufort and North Greenland) so this breach is possibly significant in the extra losses of Multiyear ice it could facilitate.

[stewfox]

The important word ....

Nothing yet to cause any real concern

The next 4 weeks will be interesting.

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

[songster]

Nothing yet to cause any real concern

You're not concerned by the fact that it's the second lowest on record, almost as bad as 2010? This despite the fact that we're still clinging on to some ice in Hudson Bay, meaning this year's melt is occurring at higher latitudes than last year?

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi songster!

I feel that some posters have only really known the Arctic through it's 'meltdown' phase and so have no real measure for the 'traditional' Arctic and it's ice levels? If I'd only known the ice for the past 5 years I'd be looking at it as an 'average year '(just a little on the low side) and not the worrying spectacle we are witness to?

With the Siberian side of the Basin losing it's land snow cover so early , and pack ice early, we have to wonder at the impacts on the permafrost there (both land based and on the shelf)?

[Thundery wintry showers]

Looks like we're stuck with a dipole type pattern for the foreseeable future with high pressure stuck resolutely to the north of Canada and west Greenland, although low pressure may not be quite as dominant over northern Eurasia as in some earlier years. A plume of >20C 850hPa air is indicated by GFS into Siberia in about a week's time which may increase melt there.

[Richie V]

Makes me wanna cry, All looks so patchy now