Arctic Ice Discussion (The Melt)

[keithlucky]

No sign of the great N pole melt you all promisedlPAWS Buoy Recent Data from the polar area weather station in fact temperatures been running below normal.

[Gray-Wolf]

Thanks Songster/BFTV. I'm not sure that J' quite understands the wealth of ongoing research we have across the Arctic at present?

The 'sneak previews' that lectures at AG M's/Arctic conventions around the year give folk a chance to 'keep up' to the current science .

It's kinda like the MetO compiling it's data? The MetO doesn't present their data in a paper every few years but their data is available to other folk working in specific areas? The Data collected from ocean/ice/atmosphere is allowing others to now produce papers on the observed changes across the Arctic (from our own BFTV through to the M.Serezze's of this world!) and improve our understanding of what we observe so we can better understand the new challenges we will face.

For 3 or 4 years now J' has been stalled on the areas she again seems 'stumped' on yet the rest of us seem to be able to negotiate her impasses? It is here that has me struggling to understand? I can accept a computer that doesn't do 'UTube' lectures but papers/info, like the ones BFTV frequently brings forward, still seem to leave her in much the same place as where she started out from?

I'd again promise you j' no one is trying to 'convince' you of untruths. The 'understanding' you seek ( to allow you to move forward in your personal understanding of our current climate shift) is already out there and the changes they document are real and HUGE.

I'd again say that we have moved beyond AGW forcing in the Arctic and are now witnessing 'natural' climate feedbacks which will lead us to an ice free Arctic far faster than Human efforts could have managed (midst the normal climate oscillations) on there own.

Natural climate feedbacks are not only increasing the heating within the Arctic but altering the way the atmosphere operates across the northern hemisphere (feeding back enhanced warming to the Arctic) They also promise to logarithmically increase GHG's across the polar regions as the enhanced warming attacks the permafrost (submerged and terrestrial).

[Methuselah]

It isn't that simple, it really isn't.

But that little bit is simple, J...Once radiation has been bounced back into space it cannot play any further part - it's gone!

But the ice acting as an insulator is a good question, a very good question! However, supposing the Arctic Ocean was ice-covered for the entire year, the huge bulk of any heat the ice could keep in, during the winter months, would have had to have originated in warmer climes...

But surely that all makes your question all the more intriguing?

[BornFromTheVoid]

No sign of the great N pole melt you all promisedlPAWS Buoy Recent Data from the polar area weather station in fact temperatures been running below normal.

Who predicted an ice free north pole in June?

The temperatures aren't looking below average here?

[Gray-Wolf]

No sign of the great N pole melt you all promisedlPAWS Buoy Recent Data from the polar area weather station in fact temperatures been running below normal.

Maybe you need to read the last NSIDC release (June 19th) to see how they feel things are running? As for temps, 80n to the pole, does not all that melting influence 2m temps (if you peep at the DMI data since the 50's you'll see a similat plot for the summer months across the series?) Once we have significant open water across the pole over the summer months then you'll see the 2m temps rise there?

We now have many years of atmospheric temp profiling across the Arctic ocean and I suggest you start with those to see the massive changes accuring across late Autumn/Early winter? As noted before areas ,once ice capped, used to go into the minus 40's over early winter .Now , due to 'open water' the temp in the same place is above freezing. Look at the ice levels over Barentsz/Kara this winter (whole season) and go figure how large a difference this area alone now accounts for?

As for 4WD's assertioons? I'd ask him how these sea areas did not freeze if all the seasons heat is lost in autumn? (and also the low ice gain across the N.Sea route/Beaufort sea)

Edited June 25, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[jethro]

Thanks Songster/BFTV. I'm not sure that J' quite understands the wealth of ongoing research we have across the Arctic at present?

The 'sneak previews' that lectures at AG M's/Arctic conventions around the year give folk a chance to 'keep up' to the current science .

It's kinda like the MetO compiling it's data? The MetO doesn't present their data in a paper every few years but their data is available to other folk working in specific areas? The Data collected from ocean/ice/atmosphere is allowing others to now produce papers on the observed changes across the Arctic (from our own BFTV through to the M.Serezze's of this world!) and improve our understanding of what we observe so we can better understand the new challenges we will face.

For 3 or 4 years now J' has been stalled on the areas she again seems 'stumped' on yet the rest of us seem to be able to negotiate her impasses? It is here that has me struggling to understand? I can accept a computer that doesn't do 'UTube' lectures but papers/info, like the ones BFTV frequently brings forward, still seem to leave her in much the same place as where she started out from?

I'd again promise you j' no one is trying to 'convince' you of untruths. The 'understanding' you seek ( to allow you to move forward in your personal understanding of our current climate shift) is already out there and the changes they document are real and HUGE.

I'd again say that we have moved beyond AGW forcing in the Arctic and are now witnessing 'natural' climate feedbacks which will lead us to an ice free Arctic far faster than Human efforts could have managed (midst the normal climate oscillations) on there own.

Natural climate feedbacks are not only increasing the heating within the Arctic but altering the way the atmosphere operates across the northern hemisphere (feeding back enhanced warming to the Arctic) They also promise to logarithmically increase GHG's across the polar regions as the enhanced warming attacks the permafrost (submerged and terrestrial).

Stop being so patronising.

I've asked you before and I'll ask you again, if you can produce peer reviewed papers for the questions I ask then I'll eat my words.

[Methuselah]

Stop being so patronising.

Seconded!

[jethro]

But that little bit is simple, J...Once radiation has been bounced back into space it cannot play any further part - it's gone!

But the ice acting as an insulator is a good question, a very good question! However, supposing the Arctic Ocean was ice-covered for the entire year, the huge bulk of any heat the ice could keep in, during the winter months, would have had to have originated in warmer climes...

But surely that all makes your question all the more intriguing?

But you're assuming that it's as simple as remove a reflective surface, replace it with a non reflective one, and the old maths stays the same. What if the open water leads to the formation of reflective clouds? They may bounce back more energy than the dirty ice.

[BornFromTheVoid]

But you're assuming that it's as simple as remove a reflective surface, replace it with a non reflective one, and the old maths stays the same.What if the open water leads to the formation of reflective clouds? They may bounce back more energy than the dirty ice.

But surely if any of these negative feedbacks were acting to balance things out, then the Arctic would not be warming and the sea ice would not be melting.

[loafer]

And another thing...stop using 'needless quotes' for emphasis, it's chuffing annoying.

[Methuselah]

But you're assuming that it's as simple as remove a reflective surface, replace it with a non reflective one, and the old maths stays the same. What if the open water leads to the formation of reflective clouds? They may bounce back more energy than the dirty ice.

No J, I'm not. Honest...I'm just saying that once any particular quantum of energy has been sent off into outer space, it cannot then continue to play a part in global heat-transfer systems...Any energy involved in cloud-formation over open-water must be driven from heat already in the system...And that, IMO, makes your question all the more interesting - and complicated??

[Gray-Wolf]

J'. Pete I assure you i am not attempting to 'patronise' anyone but it does kinds stump me as to why certain folk appear to have an up to date understanding of Arctic changes and others believe we have no such understanding?

As for the 'dark water'? Yup , instead of the heat instantly being bounced back into space it is absorded by the planet and becomes part of the planets heat budget. i'd imagine a proportion is still lost to space over time but , in a world of rising GHG's, how much is trapped here for much longer?

As J' pointed out the ice capped Arctic was a desert. with open water ,warming and evaporation will this still be the case?

We see the atmosphere holding 4% more moisture than it did 30yrs ago (warmer air can hold more vapour) and new water open as a source for the water vapour.

Can we all settle back to discussing the current ice situation and where it goes from here please?

[jethro]

But surely if any of these negative feedbacks were acting to balance things out, then the Arctic would not be warming and the sea ice would not be melting.

That depends upon the primary reason for the melt - and I'm not talking natural versus manmade. We know that ocean cycles take eons to complete a cycle, we also know that oceans act like a giant storage heater; it is possible that extra heat from both higher than normal Solar activity (past cycle) and the addition of CO2 may be stored and exerting their influence. It may not be an accurate representation of what is currently happening, but more a reflection of what has already happened. Does that make any sense??? It may be that as the ice melts, more open water generates more water vapour and thus clouds and that the knock on impact will be a negative feedback. Where that point of possible balance/equilibrium may be, or even if it exists, is yet to be established. This isn't gibberish from my addled brain but a real part of the unknowns in this equation - it genuinely is a mistake to take the open water/loss of albedo at face value - it's far more complicated than that.

In the words of NSIDC: "

Feedbacks between temperature, cloud cover and radiation are potentially important agents of climate change. However, they are not well understood and research in this area is active".

http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/patterns/feedback_loops.html

[jethro]

J'. Pete I assure you i am not attempting to 'patronise' anyone but it does kinds stump me as to why certain folk appear to have an up to date understanding of Arctic changes and others believe we have no such understanding?

As for the 'dark water'? Yup , instead of the heat instantly being bounced back into space it is absorded by the planet and becomes part of the planets heat budget. i'd imagine a proportion is still lost to space over time but , in a world of rising GHG's, how much is trapped here for much longer?

As J' pointed out the ice capped Arctic was a desert. with open water ,warming and evaporation will this still be the case?

We see the atmosphere holding 4% more moisture than it did 30yrs ago (warmer air can hold more vapour) and new water open as a source for the water vapour.

Can we all settle back to discussing the current ice situation and where it goes from here please?

And you're still talking with a level of certainty which currently doesn't exist.

By all means talk about the current ice situation, but personally I find it a bit tedious just monitoring ice levels and would rather discuss the wider issues of how, why and what we can expect in the future.

[jethro]

No J, I'm not. Honest...I'm just saying that once any particular quantum of energy has been sent off into outer space, it cannot then continue to play a part in global heat-transfer systems...Any energy involved in cloud-formation over open-water must be driven from heat already in the system...And that, IMO, makes your question all the more interesting - and complicated??

I think we've crossed wires here, either that or it's too late for me to understand.....

It may be driven by heat already in the system but the argument was that open water was non reflective whilst ice was reflective - thus open water will allow more energy to be absorbed. Fine in theory so long as the open water doesn't generate more water vapour, which in turn generates more cloud which is as reflective or more reflective than the lost ice. The albedo effect may be lost at Earth level from less ice, but it may actually be replaced above the Earth in the form of clouds.

[Methuselah]

I think we've crossed wires here, either that or it's too late for me to understand.....

It may be driven by heat already in the system but the argument was that open water was non reflective whilst ice was reflective - thus open water will allow more energy to be absorbed. Fine in theory so long as the open water doesn't generate more water vapour, which in turn generates more cloud which is as reflective or more reflective than the lost ice. The albedo effect may be lost at Earth level from less ice, but it may actually be replaced above the Earth in the form of clouds.

Not to worry, J. I'm hardly the world's leading authority, myself! We may even be, without realizing it, saying the same thing?

But yes, the latent heat of evaporation required (to initiate enhanced cloud-formation) would have to come from the ocean itself; thus we have a negative feedback-mechanism. (I think!)

If so, then you are right: we cannot yet know if one enhanced albedo will fully compensate for the other - at least for a time?

[BornFromTheVoid]

As far as extra melting from the oceans go, I do think the +ve AMO is having a large impact in the Barents and Kara sector. I think the paper I linked to earlier mentioning the AMO being a sign of an enhanced THC, driving warmer water up to the Arctic. This would be fine if the ice loss at the Atlantic sector was being balanced at the Pacific side, but much like the Arctic/Antarctic relationship, the the balance isn't there. Every Arctic region but the Barents sea is on a long term downward trend. In recent years, the Arctic basin has been losing a lot from the Pacific side, rather than the Atlantic side also.

As for the cloud feedback, during most of the year in the Arctic, energy loss is the main feature of the climate, so extra clouds for most of the time will act to trap in warmth, especially clouds formed near the surface by ocean heat release. During the melt season, cloudiness may be of use in reflecting away incoming solar radiation, so a +ve AO would be useful. Unitl the late nineties, the trend was for an increasingly +ve AO, and ice advection from the Siberian coast because of the +ve AO wind patterns was being blamed for much of the ice loss then. For over a decade now, the trend has switched to a more -ve AO, which I'd imagine means less cloud cover, and the loss has only sped up.

The black carbon is something of an unknown, but I find it hard to believe that it can cause much damage. When I consider winter 2 years ago, and the many weeks the snow lay on the ground, I don't remember particulate matter (including from the many homes burning coal and wood in their fires) really affecting the snow, but a do remember what an increase in 4 or 5C did! When I then think of the distance the pollution must travel to the Arctic, how dispersed it would be at that point and the fact that it could just get covered over in fresh snow, or transported out of the Arctic with new ice taking it's place, or washed away by surface melt in summer, etc, it becomes more difficult for me to see how it could have anything more than a negligible impact compared to temperature increase, wind patterns, SSTS and the like.

I know this is all too simplistic, but it's just my own attempts at comprehending or visualising these things!

[Gray-Wolf]

It appears that ice losses are now back to their previous highs after a slight 'dip' as the L.P. took up residence over the pole and the measuring algorithm changed to the summer one (didn't they alter this last melt season so that we lost the 'step' that used to mark the summer measurement??).

I'm sure I'd posted various papers on clouds(?) over previous years which seemed to favour the 'heat trapping' variety over the 'heat reflecting' variety? I'm sure those papers will still be widely available (studies definitely over the tropical zones showed a net increase in heat trapping clouds but also a reduction in overall 'cloudiness' as warming enabled the air to hold more moisture before condensing into clouds???).

As for arctic clouds? Sea Smoke. If we are seeing open water losing heat into the cold Arctic night then would you not expect a thick blanket of fog over the region? I know peripheral areas always had fog issues over the winter cool-down and that locals across the Arctic spot leads by the 'sea smoke' pouring off the open water? What you would need would be a mechanism to produce high stratus over the high pole for the June/July/Aug period and the evidence just does not show this occurring? It does ,over the last 10yrs, seem to show the exact opposite with H.P. dominance leading to clearer skies (as our sat images show!).

With oceans warming throughout the water column I'd expect heat transfer to the poles to increase? Isn't this the way any heat exchange system works? I know that the coastal outlet glaciers around Greenland have shown warming of the waters entering the channels but sadly this water flows under the water of the Arctic ocean (trapped by land the river discharge into the basin leads to a fresher surface.....the bulge in Beaufort?.....and the Atlantic waters are kept at depth). the rest of the basin appears to be under intense study atm but this paper may be of interest?

http://www.tos.org/o...ynska.html#view

to me it appears that the main mechanism for ice loss has been ice lost into the Atlantic over 50 or more years not being replaced at a similar rate. Once we got to the thin pack, able to melt back as we saw in 07' then we entered a new phase of Arctic melt which would appear to be running under it's own steam with open water leading to late thin ice formation leading to earlier melt and so more open water under the sun leading to........

We did have the last of the paleo ice to get rid of but this effectively occurred over the past 2 years. to me this is the 1st full year of an Arctic will negligible 'old ice' and a pack of 3yrs ,and younger, forming the ice cap. The older ice has already been through melt seasons and though it survived it did not do so without some costs to thickness and integrity. All the open water now has well rounded floes in it. there is very little of the 'old style' lozenges of multi km ice in the basin just a mess of much smaller remnants of last years melt.

The one exception is the ridged ice off N. Greenland but this is forever being lost to the Atlantic ,via Fram, once the Di-pole sets in (as C.T. ice levels for Greenland seas show us).

As such 'watching ice melt' is very interesting this time around and all the major news outlets are already running stories on the low ice levels we see a.t.m.

As we approach mid melt season we will be left with a lot of old rubble that i do not think can survive the warmed waters it sits in. The term 'Flash Melt' has been used in the past for thin vulnerable regions under perfect melt conditions. This year I think it could well encompass the central ice come mid Aug. should we see another 6 weeks of high pressure dominance.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[Methuselah]

Irrespective of whether widespread fog forms, water at -2C must lose heat to overlying air at -20C. If it didn't it would violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? But, that's just another piece of the puzzle...

[BornFromTheVoid]

Irrespective of whether widespread fog forms, water at -2C must lose heat to overlying air at -20C. If it didn't it would violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? But, that's just another piece of the puzzle...

Yep, then ice forms, creating a barrier for heat exchange. Before that, the heat exchange and the low cloud/fog layer slows the rate of cooling of the overlying air. Just as it would during a cold night at the mid latitudes?

[Gray-Wolf]

It would also suggest that we are also at the point of 'exporting moisture' from what was once a desert? All in all Pete you have to accept that we are seeing odd things now occuring across the region and that these 'oddities' will have knock on impacts with adjoining regions?

We hear of riendeer herders having to deal with the impacts that low sea ice brings to them. Be it freezing rain sealing in the lichen at the start of winter (in place of the snow they used to get) to draining tundra lakes (watering holes used for generations) due to permafrost melt (they do find that castrating the males allows them to 'bulk up' and so break the 'glaze' off the ground below and access their food.....some of the costs of climate change eh???)

Edited June 26, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[Methuselah]

Yep, then ice forms, creating a barrier for heat exchange. Before that, the heat exchange and the low cloud/fog layer slows the rate of cooling of the overlying air. Just as it would during a cold night at the mid latitudes?

Absolutely!

[BornFromTheVoid]

No longer lowest on record on CT, with 2010 now about 40,000km2 lower than this year. With sea ice extent, we're still 3rd lowest on record for the time of year.

The coming week looks like exhibiting a weak mean +ve dipole/-ve AO mix as high pressure builds over Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago.

This HP has already dragged some very warm air into the Canadian side of the Arctic, with uppers of >15C making their way into the Arctic Ocean. This warmth will spread towards northern Greenland and across the Archipelago. This warmth eventually spreads acorss most of the Arctic ocean, leaving 850s below 0C very sparse.

With this some very warm surface temperatures appear, especially across the Canadian Archipelago (>20C), which could cause the "flash melt" conditions mentioned earlier. During all this, temperatures remain relatively warm across the Baffin sea and Hudson Bay, which may leave less than 100,000km2 in both these areas well before mid July, which is when it reached that low point last year.

[Gray-Wolf]

Looks like Neven has an interest in the ocean heat flux!

http://neven1.typepa...-heat-flux.html

Lot's of sound info and, more importantly for some, papers to wade through...........looks like a lot of reading to be done!!!

EDIT: I hope now that folk can see through enough of this to understand how important the energy absorbed, in-situ, by the Arctic Ocean now is to the future of the ice there?

We may well recognise the historic importance of small, local?, changes to sectors of the basin and the way ice thickness responded but now we are in a new phase where masses of 'new energy' enters the ocean each summer as the ice recedes ever further. We are now approaching (or ,indeed 'at') the point where ice thickness across a critical portion of the pack will not survive the season allowing the 'extra energy' into the surface of the ocean needed to bottom melt out the remaining pack through Aug/Sept. The early loss of ice, across both east and west of the basin, is allowing this process to occur very early in the season. Remember that ice, up to 1m thick, will still allow significant heating to occur in the ocean below. At present how much of the basin holds ice 1m thick or less? How much of the basin is riddled with holes?

BFTV has outlined the heat that will once again build through the Canadian side of the basin. How much of the ice there will not survive this next blast and how much of that energy will be added directly to the ocean heat flux to melt out further areas of ice?

I'd say again that this is certainly the time to watch the ice melt across the basin. It may well prove to be a portion of human history that will prove to be as enduring as the tales of the flooding of the Black Sea by the Meditteranean!

Edited June 26, 2012 by Gray-Wolf

[BornFromTheVoid]

MODIS Arctic mosaic image from the 26th of June (2012+2009) and the 27th of June (2010+2011). Just to compare the areas of loss and state of the remaining ice up to this point, though the clouds do obscure quite a bit...