Arctic Ice Discussion (the Refreeze 2012-2013)

[quest4peace]

NSIDC December review.

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

Let's hope the Negative phase we are in can help the basin at least

[Gray-Wolf]

Let's hope the Negative phase we are in can help the basin at least

problem being that we have not been seeing sustained cold across the basin? If we believe PIOMAS then the ice is even thinner than the past years where we saw ice export of the thicker ice?

If we believe the 'Strat Warmers' the the polar vortex is just about to be blown out of the basin with little chance of it re-forming before the spring equinox is up on us?

With FY ice increasing it's share of the basin (again) it is a concern to have read how much more energy this ice type allows into the waters below compared with the older ice. To me it means a threefold increase in what energy used to get into the basin even before the ice has gone. If this is the mechanism that allows the mega algal blooms to develop then we have an even darker surface to concentrate this energy on early in the season further speeding up the loss of the FY ice.

Last year we 'apparently' saw 3m+ of Canadian Archipelago FY ice go by Aug. How much 3m FY ice do we have in the basin? To me it seems a safe bet that an average year will again take the vast majority of the F.Y, ice. Add into this the amount of 'multiyear ice' which is FY ice welded onto the base and we may be looking at very thin multiyear ice come Aug. Any recurrance of the cyclone will surely mangle this ice leaving only fragmented ice throughout the basin.

Fragmented ice exposes more surface area (to it's mass) than solid ,contiguous ice and so melts out far faster.

That is an 'average year'. what if we get an above average year???

Edited January 9, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[quest4peace]

problem being that we have not been seeing sustained cold across the basin? If we believe PIOMAS then the ice is even thinner than the past years where we saw ice export of the thicker ice?

If we believe the 'Strat Warmers' the the polar vortex is just about to be blown out of the basin with little chance of it re-forming before the spring equinox is up on us?

With FY ice increasing it's share of the basin (again) it is a concern to have read how much more energy this ice type allows into the waters below compared with the older ice. To me it means a threefold increase in what energy used to get into the basin even before the ice has gone. If this is the mechanism that allows the mega algal blooms to develop then we have an even darker surface to concentrate this energy on early in the season further speeding up the loss of the FY ice.

Last year we 'apparently' saw 3m+ of Canadian Archipelago FY ice go by Aug. How much 3m FY ice do we have in the basin? To me it seems a safe bet that an average year will again take the vast majority of the F.Y, ice. Add into this the amount of 'multiyear ice' which is FY ice welded onto the base and we may be looking at very thin multiyear ice come Aug. Any recurrance of the cyclone will surely mangle this ice leaving only fragmented ice throughout the basin.

Fragmented ice exposes more surface area (to it's mass) than solid ,contiguous ice and so melts out far faster.

That is an 'average year'. what if we get an above average year???

Hi Gw to be honest, I must admit, i've been posting the 2m temp maps of the arctic myself, over the past few weeks. I must say, that even i've commented on how much milder, than it should be, it has been up there based on the maps :/ There has been a distinct lack of the deeper blues (-40c and below) that i would associate with the arctic.Must admit i feel a bit lost with it all.

Here's todays chart.

Still the milder stretch in the middle with the colder air dispersed either side of the continents.

Edited January 9, 2013 by quest4peace

[Geordiesnow]

problem being that we have not been seeing sustained cold across the basin? If we believe PIOMAS then the ice is even thinner than the past years where we saw ice export of the thicker ice?

Thats the downside of having a negative AO is that the Arctic warms up significantly and this can clearly been seen by the record low ice extent in the Barents Sea, I mean, has the ice edge been so far away from Svalbard in the middle of a winter season before? Maybe if you want to make a comparison to recent years, then 2006 had a low extent during winter and in Barents in particular and that year finished with extent that would look quite respectable these days. I never followed Arctic Ice back then and obviously volume and thickness would be greater than it is now but I think if we look at it overall, you'll be very surprised if we don't get near 2012 levels again.

On a slightly different note, how is the snowcover doing in terms of records? Thanks to the Negative AO, snow cover appears to of been very extensive this winter and if it is one of the highest for the time of year, at least that sort of continues the trend for more widespread snowcover which you never know one year, we may see the natural warmth being build up so quickly giving a rapid thaw during the Spring months.

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi G.S.!

Much the same as outside the basin ice extensive/extreme snow still seems to melt out before it could be useful in the albedo side of things?

I think the same mechanism that brings us the deep H.P. winter systems (and extreme cold) also leads to Summer H.P.'s leading to extreme dry and heat? It's almost as it the boundaries for temp are being stretched at both ends but that the heat , via the oceans , is winning out (the continents heat and cool real fast but the oceans do not respond as quickly leaving a 'last year' residue to plump up the following one).

[Gray-Wolf]

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/Bpiomas_plot_daily_heff.2sst.png

Gives us an idea of how we are doing compared to last year.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Must be the first time the Franz Joseph Islands have been surrounded by water in January?

CT archive maps aren't working at the moment, so can't check previous years.

[Gray-Wolf]

Seeing as the discussions over on the L.I. thread have ceased I thought it might prove interesting to explore some of the issues that thread introduced?

The L.I. itself illustrates how we can get a similar 'match' to past climate using very differing inputs?

This , of course, set me thinking esp. about the 'missing Heat' we hear so much about from certain quarters of the debate. Could a portion of this 'missing Heat' have been hiding in plain sight?

We already know , and expect, a certain 'lag' in climates response to any forcing. Mother N. appears to have lots of checks and balances to keep climate semi stable ( and so allow time for species to adapt to climate swings?) but under a constant forcing there must come a time where those 'balances' are overcome and climate changes to a more suitable state for 'balance to again be established?

Seeing as we have seen climate change from ice age to interglacial we know that, at some point, climate inertia must be overcome and then a transition to another state occurs.

Maybe science has 'overcooked' the books by settling for a climate model that , though aping past temp trends, did not include a portion of energy that would suddenly be introduced into the system once certain 'inertias' were overcome?

To me I believe we are transitioning into one such period and this knocks my confidence in current short term modeling of global climate.

I can see a vast body of energy that used to be used up melting ice over the north and south pole summers. Over the north pole we have seen a sudden reduction in the amount of ice to melt up to the point that a portion of the year now has very little ice for this energy to work on. Not only that but with the loss of the scale of ice we used to have over the North Pole comes a vast reduction in the Albedo there allowing more 'external energy' into the climate system.

A similar 'flip' has been occurring to the snow levels over the northern hemisphere with ever earlier dates for snow melt out now appearing to be the norm allowing more energy to be absorbed by the ground below and less energy reflected back into space.

All the while mankind is enhancing the atmosphere's capacity to hold onto that heat.

Before such a melt out extra energy (from AGW) was spent melting out 'extra ice' leading to the overall reduction , to near nil, of the sea ice across the whole Arctic ocean. We could not 'see' a result from this energy as we were unable to study the Arctic in the ways we are able to do so today. Climate models were not sophisticated to model the ice loss along with global temps and show us a close match ,as they did with temp alone, and so, to me, a large chunk of the energy budget was ignored completely.

This energy is now becoming ever more redundant from it's old job so surely we must ask 'What will it do next?'.

We have been noting growing alterations to northern hemisphere circulation and some folk have been pointing to 'ice melt' as a mechanism. The folk who pooh, pooh, the idea have obviously neglected to include this 'old energy' in their calculations and only looked at the 'new energy' that open water brings into the system.

Lets put it another way. how much surface area do you have in a rugged landscape of ice with blocks over four storeys high interspersed with less rugged ice? when you have a near flat 2m thick ice pack how much surface area does this expose to the air in comparison? From sun up over the arctic the amount of energy being 'sucked out' of the system by cooling has massively reduced from that which used to be employed. From Spring through to autumn sunset this reduced use of energy surely allows the portion that is now 'un-used' to work in different areas of the climate?

Then we have the deep ocean. How much energy is absorbed by the oceans surface only to be sub-ducted to the depths? When this current warms it ends up taking less energy to warm it back to average surface temps once it re-emerges in cold upwelling later in it's journey. This again makes some of the energy that used to be needed to do that job redundant and free to work in other areas of the climate?

Some of the 'early warmed' currents are already now re-surfacing (or near to) and so will allow another wadge of 'missing heat/hidden energy' to re-enter the open climate system?

All in all I have to wonder at the scale of the warming the next time we move into a period of positive climate forcing with not only a stronger AGW signal to augment it but also this 'extra energy' added in as well?

The folk who make such a song and dance about 'flat line temps' or a reduced warming rate should really be asking why have temps not fallen back to old averages? Why are we still seeing temps mimicking the late 80's/90's instead of returning to those more indicative of the negative forcings we have seen? I'm not sold on 'lags' as past periods of cold driver forcings have had instant impact (look at the last extended period of PDO-ve and show me how long it took for global temps to respond).

Last year was a new 'record warm La Nina' period, pushing the previous year off that pedestal, how can this be? How can we still be pushing top ten global temps in a period where we should be seeing cooling and a predominance of cool records being set?

The coming summer will see this extra energy again at play in the climate system and this time with no 'Nina pushing temps down. I wonder how our 'flat-line global temps' will respond?

We also see one of the planets great ice sheets speeding up (naturally) to this 'extra energy' by melting at ever faster rates leaving more and more open ground where ice once covered and reflected incoming energy. When the Arctic is finished, and again finds it's annual rhythm, will we see Greenland make a step change and bring even more energy to the system? With the warming now breaking into the Antarctic continental margins I then have to wonder how long before we see East Antarctica begin acting in a similar way allowing the southern Hemisphere to inherit it's own 'hidden energy' source and accelerate change there to?

I was rather tongue in cheek on another forum by suggesting the MetO's forecast change for the next few years warming was so that temps could exceed the 'average' predicted and so halt all of this "we're not warming" non-sense. I'm now beginning to wonder if this will now prove a little prophetic?

EDIT: Shifted from a thread I thought might prove useful so I'm sorry it's ended up here!

Edited January 14, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[BornFromTheVoid]

Arctic sea ice extent has had a little slump the last few days, dropping from 8th lowest on record (and just under 600k off the long term mean and slightly above the 04-08 average) back down to 5th lowest and over 750k off the long term.

The Arctic continues with it's -ve AO and -ve dipole pattern since October, quite a change from the +ve dipole pattern that had become the norm in recent years.

It will be interesting to see if the -ve dipole continues into the late spring and early summer, the time when it's been particularly strong since 2007.

[BornFromTheVoid]

A 91k drop on the IJIS extent yesterday, mirroring an almost identical drop this time last year. Hard to see where the loss came from though, so perhaps a big increase to be expected on tomorrows update?

[BornFromTheVoid]

A jump of 256k over the last 2 days on the NSIDC extent figures, which is massive for the time of year. With the exception of 2008, it takes us ahead of all years since 2004, to 9th lowest on record.

This means we are now just

504k off the 2011 Annual Maximum

604k off the 2007 Annual Maximum

548k off the 2006 Annual Maximum

[BornFromTheVoid]

One thing I am concerned about is the Arctic, the losses there have been so consistent it is truly scary. A question is... what changed in 2004-2005 in the Arctic for such a drop in summer ice area?

Nothing too dramatic occurred in 2004-2005.

I think looking at the ice volume can tell a lot more about what's going on than the typically used extent values.

Air pressure patterns can cause larger fluctuation in the extent and area, by spreading the ice out over a larger area, or compressing it and occasionally thickening the ice by ridging floes together. The volume is much more consistent with its accelerating decline, which is continuing on even through this winter

As the ice is getting ever thinner and more easily influenced by the summers weather, when we got unusual summer weather patterns in the past (2007, 2005, 2003, 1999, 1995) such as a +ve dipole anomaly, we would get new record low extents. Last summer proved unusual, in that we broke all previous records by such a huge margin, but without the weather patterns that usually promoted strong extent losses (some will claim the storm in August as the reason, but we were already lowest on record by most counts before the storm).

What that means going forward, nobody can say for certain. But if we have a similar occurrence this summer, it may back up the idea that we could go ice free before the end of this decade.

[BornFromTheVoid]

After the large gains of late last week, sea ice extent has essentially flat lined since Sunday on both IJIS and NSIDC values.

We're still well above the lowest years on record for the time of year though (over 500k above 2006 NSIDC).

The area on Cryosphere today is looking better, gaining over 100k/day on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (last day available), bringing the anomaly down to 755k.

[cheeky_monkey]

After the large gains of late last week, sea ice extent has essentially flat lined since Sunday on both IJIS and NSIDC values.

We're still well above the lowest years on record for the time of year though (over 500k above 2006 NSIDC).

The area on Cryosphere today is looking better, gaining over 100k/day on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (last day available), bringing the anomaly down to 755k.

when approx does the annual maximum occur?

[BornFromTheVoid]

when approx does the annual maximum occur?

Anywhere from the end of February to the end of March. Though they've typically been getting later.

EDIT: Actually, after checking the data, while there is a slight trend towards a later maximum, it's nowhere near statistically significant.

Edited January 31, 2013 by BornFromTheVoid

[Geordiesnow]

I wonder what the last year was when ice extent was at its maximum extent in February? I would imagine late 90's and I feel with ice extent still below average even during the winter months, I would say a maximum extent occuring in February again is very low.

[BornFromTheVoid]

I wonder what the last year was when ice extent was at its maximum extent in February? I would imagine late 90's and I feel with ice extent still below average even during the winter months, I would say a maximum extent occuring in February again is very low.

NSIDC use the 5 day mean for most of their measurements. But using the 1 day extent value, 2008 was the last February maximum surprisingly enough.

[BornFromTheVoid]

With January's daily extent data now in, the month has averaged the 4th lowest on record (this may be different to the NSIDC official release, which uses a different method). The 3 lowest, from third to first, are 2005, 2011, 2006.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Just 18k off recording out first average sea ice area globally according to Cryosphere Today. The Arctic anomaly is down to just 683k, the closest to average since May 25th 2012.

The Kara sea is up to average for the first time since winter 2011.

The next week looks like continuing the -ve dipole pattern, with northerlies through the Bering strait and southerlies up into the Kara and Barents seas again. With the Bering sea ice area already slightly above average, any growth there is likely to be relatively slow, with losses in Kara and Barents likely to be minor at this time of year. The sea of Okhotsk is the main area that could deliver any significant growth in area/extent in my opinion, with it currently being well below average. With a lot of storms moving over here in the next week, the battle for ice growth will be between the ice damage from the wind and rough seas, and the cold continental westerlies that the storms introduces.

Without growth there, perhaps a slow increase over the next week could be expected, maybe averaging under 25k/day, if the Sea of Okhotsk begins to see some growth, then 30-40k/day is possible.

[keithlucky]

No records tumbling look at history http://www.john-daly...olar/arctic.htm

[Methuselah]

Oh dear!

[BornFromTheVoid]

No records tumbling look at history http://www.john-daly...olar/arctic.htm

What? While avoiding some of the more obvious flaws in that link, it would appear to be about 11 or 12 years old.

What point are you trying to make?

[Gray-Wolf]

I would think that the link was attempting to 'normalise' the fears generated by what was found across the pole in 2000? It does appear a little silly in the light of what we then saw over the intervening period?

I would suggest that anyone trying to draw solice from the paper would not mind how outdated it is? There is no altering the facts of the matter and so why burden yourself with them? Why not just pretend they do not exist and return to a time when such accepting the possibility of our modern realities was viewed as 'doom mongering' by the likes of the author?

[Methuselah]

Aye BFTV and GW, it only needs one look?

[Gray-Wolf]

I just do not understand what this type of thing brings to our understanding of what is occuring though Pete? If it brought new information that possited that there might be a 'natural mechanism' to rebuild the Arctic then it would be worth studying but old 'cherry picked' soundbites from papers written about an arctic basin that no longer exists???

We ,none of us, chose what occurs in the Arctic but surely it is better to keep a level head about the ongoing changes there than to scrape around trying to deny them? only by keeping up to date with changes can we see any 'positives' that might occur up there?

EDIT: I've just seen BFTV's comments over on the 'news' thread regarding the 'spamming' like posts that some members put up without comment or explaination? I know we all have our own understandings but cluttering the threads up with old, discredited, materials does impact the thread and also creates a wrong atmosphere for the topics (one of constant put downs to those who post up the nonsense might seem impolite to folk just passing through?).

If we have relevant news/data for the threads could we give a brief over-view and why we feel it to be important in with the 'link'?

Edited February 3, 2013 by Gray-Wolf