Arctic Ice Discussion (the Refreeze 2012-2013)

[BornFromTheVoid]

Hi BFTV Not looking good for the max this year? The area has dropped to over 1 million below again as well hasn't it?

Good evening Q4P.

Not sure how much we can say about the max with regards extent and area, but it's certainly not looking too good for volume! Last I saw we were around 900k below average with area, but CT seems to be down at the moment so maybe I missed an update?

I think claiming a shift change from that is dodgy, you only need to look at 2010 and it was near enough as much below the average as above.

Then look at 1976:

Some years are quite a way off the norm for whatever reason.

You can't really imply 'it can't get cold anymore' - just look at Siberia and Alaska breaking cold records.

Slight pattern shift and that cold air could just as easily be displaced northwards.

2010 looks mostly above average to me? As does 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005. I think we have to go back to 2004 to see a close to or mainly below average year?

[Geordiesnow]

Good to see we are above 2010 at years end, but apart from that pretty dire

Would it really make a difference if it was a little higher, surely the winter extent is not all and end all of what will happen in the summer.

That said, its not rocket science why the extent is so low when we see how it is in the Barents Sea, has the ice edge ever been so far North of Svalbord at the start of January? Yes, admittedly, the ice edge has been further South than it is now and wind direction and lack of cold is probably the main reason but its a potentially concerning situation. As I said previously, if we get a low extent in the Atlantic side of the Arctic, you would imagine the North pole will be under further threat. Looking at the output, you would say the ice edge could end up further North still!

Or could you look at the glass slightly half full and say do we prefer a more southerly flow(especially between Svalbord and Greenland) to minimise the thicker ice leaving fram? It did not help us last year so what set up would people prefer?

[Gray-Wolf]

I think we have to accept that , come Spring, the amount of FY ice cripples any chance of the ice surviving. We now know that FY ice allows up to 3 times the suns energy through the ice allowing it to melt from above, below and even inside!

We saw up to 3m of ice go in the CA last summer and all before Aug!

So how do we get out of this feedback loop?

[gagerg]

I think we have to accept that , come Spring, the amount of FY ice cripples any chance of the ice surviving. We now know that FY ice allows up to 3 times the suns energy through the ice allowing it to melt from above, below and even inside!

We saw up to 3m of ice go in the CA last summer and all before Aug!

So how do we get out of this feedback loop?

It almost sounds like you support my idea of a full melt out during April or even before June.

[Gray-Wolf]

Over time I think that has to be a given? For now a high melt out before Aug is the issue and I think the year we go 'seasonal' will show us just that? I do not think the 'seasonal' pack will just be a few days in Sept but will occur when ice is near gone by early Aug.

Once all of the ice is FY ice then what chance do we have of recovery? Remember a lot of the 'older ice' today has had a couple of melt cycles and so is now only a 'crust' of older ice with FY ice welded on below. With a season like last years I have to wonder how close the remaining ice was to melt out when re-freeze began? The poor behaviour of the older ice in last years melt season showed us that we cannot go on thickness alone but must look to it's min thickness the season before to judge how it will perform over the new melt season.

This property of FY ice to be it's own Achilles heel will prove to be very important now we have so much of it? Remember the discussions of the 'blue ice' last summer? FY ice produces far more melt ponds than older ice so the flooding of the pack (and dip in albedo) is going to be key in the early removal of ice.

Again, think of it's behaviour over an 07' synoptic year?

[4wd]

Over time I think that has to be a given?

Ice will never melt out in April or even June - and you know it.

March and April is the maximum extent, and often melting is very slow until July.

It's the same here, in that we can often have major snow falls in March or even April because it takes weeks for the strengthening sun to do much warming.

Under clear skies there is net cooling at our latitude until Mid-April. More heat is lost through radiation than received through the day.

[laserguy]

Ice will never melt out in April or even June - and you know it.

If that happened it'd be because of Nibiru knocking the Earth about so that it adopted a Uranus-like stance! And that's about as likely as daft CO2-inspired dreams doing the same trick...

[BornFromTheVoid]

Definitely no complete April melt out in our lifetimes. If the planet does somehow warm to such a degree as to make that possible, that quickly, we're most certainly f'd!

On the other hand, a complete (well, 99% complete) melt out in August could occur relatively soon I'd say. During the 2020s maybe?

What would we all class as an ice free Arctic anyway? Under 1 million km2 remaining? Under 500k? 100k?

Edited January 4, 2013 by BornFromTheVoid

[loafer]

One which was free of ice.

Or did I miss the memo changing the english language?

[Devonian]

One which was free of ice.

Or did I miss the memo changing the english language?

Then the last time the UK was ice free was 2006 - when all the UK's snow patches last melted. But, can we agree that is not a sensible defintion of an ice free UK?

So a sensible defintion of an ice free Arctic would seem to me to be free of ice that originated in the sea, or indeed, practically free of such ice. It will have to warm a lot for all the ice in the Arctic to disappear. Otoh, if Arctic ice experts define what 'ice free' is I'm happy to accept that since base lines have to be defined..

[BornFromTheVoid]

One which was free of ice.

Or did I miss the memo changing the english language?

*English language.

But you'll likely get little bits left in inlets and whatnot. Even small amounts that the satellites won't be able to pick up.

Didn't WUWT use sub 1 million in their countdown during the summer as an "essentially" ice free Arctic?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Would it really make a difference if it was a little higher, surely the winter extent is not all and end all of what will happen in the summer.

That said, its not rocket science why the extent is so low when we see how it is in the Barents Sea, has the ice edge ever been so far North of Svalbord at the start of January? Yes, admittedly, the ice edge has been further South than it is now and wind direction and lack of cold is probably the main reason but its a potentially concerning situation. As I said previously, if we get a low extent in the Atlantic side of the Arctic, you would imagine the North pole will be under further threat. Looking at the output, you would say the ice edge could end up further North still!

Or could you look at the glass slightly half full and say do we prefer a more southerly flow(especially between Svalbord and Greenland) to minimise the thicker ice leaving fram? It did not help us last year so what set up would people prefer?

While we've seen the dipole, in recent months, trend more neutral or negative, we're still seeing a +ve pressure gradient overall from Svalbard to Greenland, which is encouraging some ice export.

The last time we saw a mean negative pressure difference from east to west around the Fram Strait for a whole season was in the summer of 2005. On average, before 2005, 2 out of every 3 years has a season with a negative pressure gradient, and thus mainly southerly winds and presumably reduced export.

We haven't had a year with even just a below average pressure gradient (not negative, and based on the 51-00 mean) from Svalbard to Greenland since 2004.

This is particularly true for the second half of the year, when the melt kicks in and the Autumn heat release takes hold and the lower concentration/thinner ice is more easily influenced by the winds.

If we could get a run of below average or especially negative value seasons with this, it may help hold back some of the thicker ice.

[Gray-Wolf]

Once again I'd implore folk to look at what kind of an energy 'change' we'd need to see a 'year 'round' ice free conditions in the Arctic? I'd hope to agree with BFTV and not see such poor ice that we lose it as soon as the sun is up in the Arctic!

Should we see extreme weather across the basin of such a scale that we lose the separation between warm atlantic bottom waters and the frsher, colder waters above then we may well find ourselves again on a planet which has a warm polar region all year (remember the PETM had to have maintainwed temps above 50f over winter to support the critters and vgetation we see as far north as Ellesmere Island).

If our introduction of GHG's promotes the re-animation of our hibernating Carbon cycle then we will find our planet ice free and with CO2 levels above those in the PETM.

400ppm =no ice on west Antarctica and Greenland only 2/3rds ice covered. 450ppm was when Antarctica first started to accumulate ice.

We are at the 400ppm already and the 'hidden carbon' that was part of the carbon cycle back then is only starting to re-join the current carbon cycle. I make it 120ppm that was taken out by ice sheets , permafrost and peat bogs that dropped the CO2 levels to the point we were at before the industrial revolution. In the past 150yrs the 'fossil Carbon has started to impact global temps (and so climate) but still has a way to go before it 'balances' back out.....of course that is another 120ppm on top of the current 400ppm (plus our 2ppm/year if we carry on as we are this year) giving us 520ppm or well above that at which Antarctica Froze so we then have that melt out to face and it's carbon cycle to re-animate.

As it is there appears to be no 'safe ' way of undoing the damage and , as noted, we still have a long way to go before we see the full impacts of what we have in the atmosphere today.

With the Arctic on the verge of a seasonal pack we are at the point where the majority FY ice in the basin can absorb 3 times as much energy as it did when covered in multiyear ice (even when still ice covered). How can we move back to the old Arctic? Even poor years put more energy into the basin than perfect storm years with Multiyear ice cover!!!

This 'new Energy' is the game changer.

[gagerg]

What on earth?

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

[laserguy]

What on earth?

http://arctic.atmos....nteractive.html

Oh Cripes! Looks like GW was right all along!

[quest4peace]

Current sea ice thickness animation Note the sudden expansion of the core of thicker ice in recent days.

.

Click to enlarge and animate.

Edited January 5, 2013 by quest4peace

[BornFromTheVoid]

Good to see a little thickening up there. Hopefully the extent values will improve soon, as currently they're lowest on record.

[Gray-Wolf]

I applaud the sentiment BFTV but we saw 3m+ of FY ice melt out of the CA latitude last year? Couple that with how much of the 'older ice' is really 'older ice' and not FY ice welded onto a skim of 'older ice' and we might be better prepared for melt season?

I know none of us wish to be labeled 'Doomsayer but surely it is better to show your fears/weaknesses than try and appear 'strong' knowing this will be challenged later down the line?'

I fear for the coming melt season in that it may challenge last year record losses. Our last record took 5 years to break so what would an instant breaking of those records signal?

The same goes for Greenland.

Four calls it an 'outlier', yet it is in line of the logarithmic increase in melt?

And what of global temps in this 'negatively skewed' period of natural drivers?

What if we see a continuation of current logarithmic trends?

[BornFromTheVoid]

I applaud the sentiment BFTV but we saw 3m+ of FY ice melt out of the CA latitude last year? Couple that with how much of the 'older ice' is really 'older ice' and not FY ice welded onto a skim of 'older ice' and we might be better prepared for melt season?

I know none of us wish to be labeled 'Doomsayer but surely it is better to show your fears/weaknesses than try and appear 'strong' knowing this will be challenged later down the line?'

I fear for the coming melt season in that it may challenge last year record losses. Our last record took 5 years to break so what would an instant breaking of those records signal?

The same goes for Greenland.

Four calls it an 'outlier', yet it is in line of the logarithmic increase in melt?

And what of global temps in this 'negatively skewed' period of natural drivers?

What if we see a continuation of current logarithmic trends?

I'm not saying next year is looking much better, but I see the increase in ice thickness as a positive as opposed to it not thickening up at all.

As for next summers melt, I doubt Greenland will see the same massively anomalous ridging, so a small drop in the melt rate could be expected. With regard to the sea ice I generally agree.

[pottyprof]

Current sea ice thickness animation Note the sudden expansion of the core of thicker ice in recent days.

.

Click to enlarge and animate.

Has the ice always shifted in the way it does towards the end of that animation or is it just me? I can't remember seeing such a large lurch away from the east of Greenland... That said I rarely remember what I did earlier these days.

[quest4peace]

Has the ice always shifted in the way it does towards the end of that animation or is it just me? I can't remember seeing such a large lurch away from the east of Greenland... That said I rarely remember what I did earlier these days.

Quite dramatic to say the least I'm used to hearing that the ice is disapearing down fram so is it not good that it is going the other way now? albeit temporarily Can you give us any more info on that BFTV?

Edited January 7, 2013 by quest4peace

[BornFromTheVoid]

IJIS has updated, now lowest on record by 225k

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv

[BornFromTheVoid]

Latest PIOMAS update, not looking good at all...

Quite dramatic to say the least I'm used to hearing that the ice is disapearing down fram so is it not good that it is going the other way now? albeit temporarily Can you give us any more info on that BFTV?

Just a temporary thing from the winds. What it does show is the big difference that a long spell, especially seasonal, of southerlies through Fram could make with holding that thicker ice in the basin. Unfortunately, those types of weather patterns have been largely absent since 2005.

Edited January 7, 2013 by BornFromTheVoid

[quest4peace]

Latest PIOMAS update, not looking good at all...

Just a temporary thing from the winds. What it does show is the big difference that a long spell, especially seasonal, of southerlies through Fram could make with holding that thicker ice in the basin. Unfortunately, those types of weather patterns have been largely absent since 2005.

Thanks for your reply BFTV It's really frustrating to see that all the arctic needs initially, is a change in wind directions. I must admit i would never of thought a southerly wind would in fact be an asset up there for the ice. Meanwhile the ice condition in general is still quite appalling interesting times.

Look at the current ice speed and direction Wouldn't it brilliant if it was like this till the end of winter?

Edited January 8, 2013 by quest4peace

[BornFromTheVoid]

NSIDC December review.

Arctic Oscillation switches to negative phase

Arctic sea ice extent for December 2012 remained far below average, driven by anomalously low ice conditions in the Kara, Barents, and Labrador seas. Thus far, the winter has been dominated by the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, bringing colder than average conditions to Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska, and Canada.

The rest is here http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/