Arctic Ice Discussion (the Refreeze 2012-2013)

[BornFromTheVoid]

Not quite time for a melt season thread yet. Yesterday's NSIDC update was a new daily extent maximum, 15.115,210km2, compared to the next highest of 15.097,340km2.

This puts us on 5th lowest maximum on record.

The JAXA/IJIS maximum so far is from the 10th of March while the Cryosphere Today is from February 28th.

[knocker]

Ice concentration

[barrel1234]

Looking at the GFS for our side of the pond its not looking too bad for Sea Ice over our side, with easterlies blowing from russia in the higher lattitudes which should hopefully keep things cool and stop too much ice being lost through Fram.

[keithlucky]

New record growth for Arctic ice http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008

[knocker]

Arctic Sea Ice Loss, part 3

Posted on March 14, 2013 |

Having looked at extent, area, and volume of Arctic sea ice, then at its thickness, let’s examine some other derived variables.

There are (at least) two derived variables we can construct from extent and area. One, which I’ve called “spread,†is their ratio, i.e., extent divided by area. The other, which I’ve dubbed “split†(although I don’t think that’s such a good term) is their difference, i.e., extent minus area. These are related to how much the ice pack is broken up. If the ice pack were a single, unbroken solid piece then extent would equal area, so that the spread would be 1 and the split would be zero.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/arctic-sea-ice-loss-part-3/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[BornFromTheVoid]

Recent NSIDC extent increases have seen us set new highs for both the daily annual extent maximum and the 5 day mean maximum.

We're currently 13th lowest on record, above years such as 1995 and 1996.

IJIS hit a new high for the year yesterday also, while Cryosphere Today's maximum is still February 28th.

[Methuselah]

What worries me most, about the upcoming ice-melt season, is the amount of ice that is only very thin...Given the right synoptics, this year's summer melt could be spectacularly rapid?

[UV-RAY]

What worries me most, about the upcoming ice-melt season, is the amount of ice that is only very thin...Given the right synoptics, this year's summer melt could be spectacularly rapid?

I'm surprised it hasn't melted already, tongue in cheek before anyone gets their knickers in a twist. For the melt season the right synoptics could also see a recovery, just a thought.

[BornFromTheVoid]

I'm surprised it hasn't melted already, tongue in cheek before anyone gets their knickers in a twist. For the melt season the right synoptics could also see a recovery, just a thought.

It's hard to know what the right synoptics are, and how you define a recovery. While it may be a somewhat positive sign, I personally wouldn't consider an extent slightly above last year a recovery. It would just be part of a noisy signal in a downward trend

[UV-RAY]

It's hard to know what the right synoptics are, and how you define a recovery. While it may be a somewhat positive sign, I personally wouldn't consider an extent slightly above last year a recovery. It would just be part of a noisy signal in a downward trend

I agree BFTV, a recovery would have to be year on year on, so if we see an increase in summer ice this season then next season will have to beat that one. Maybe we are starting too see such synoptics now with the below average temps still being reported around there, I wouldn't bet my house on it though.

[knocker]

BFTV has of course covered this but I think the graphics are excellent. Or some might consider not.

February 2013 Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral Update

http://www.skeptical...ice-spiral.html

Edited March 17, 2013 by knocker

[Gray-Wolf]

Better hope the synoptics currently over the basin are absent once the suns up properly over the ice?

Whilst I know many of us will be watching for ice min/ice free basin but I've decided I'll be keeping an eye on how fast the ice goes in the first half of the melt season. The longer we have large areas of open water under sun the faster we lose the remaining ice (and gain more extreme weather events across the northern hemisphere).

I still find it hard to believe folk are being pedants as to temps across the planet when such huge physical changes are ongoing?

[knocker]

When will the summer Arctic be nearly sea ice free?

Its hardly an original question. And the answer (we don’t know) isn’t original either. In case you were wondering, this is Overland and Wang, GRL 2013, doi: 10.1002/grl.50316 (PDF courtesy of V). Different but not entirely different to A sea ice free summer Arctic within 30 years?, also in GRL; or even A sea ice free summer Arctic within 30 years-an update from CMIP5 models by Wang and Overland.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/03/18/when-will-the-summer-arctic-be-nearly-sea-ice-free/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[Gray-Wolf]

I'd agree with some of the comments in their drift that posting 'earlier dates' than is 'modeled' could impact your career esp. in this Koch Bros dominated blogsphere?

Luckily there are still some unpolluted blogs/forums where I read a great deal of sound thinking with dates earlier than 2030 for 'melt out'.

When you look at the graph the 'median line' (blue) shows a couple of spikes but no troughs to 'balance out' those spikes? Any such 'trough' would usher in an ice free Sept.

07' is viewed as a 'freak year' due to the synoptics which favoured melt and export. 2012 was 'average' and knocked the 07' record for six? What would an 07' type synoptic do to ice levels??? When you think of how much 'volume' was dropped over 06' and 07' you have to wonder at how much ice we would have seen last Aug if another 'perfect storm year' had arrived? How would that remnant pack have dealt with the Aug ocean's assault?

When the end comes it will be ushered in by extreme melt prior to Aug, probably aided and abetted by very thin ice that was well fractured prior to melt onset..........sadly this year looks to be setting out into melt season with the majority of the pack well fractured with recent shear events targetting the older ice off Ellesmere Island and Greenland's north coast.......better hope that the extreme H.P. that is currently sat over the pole does not last into melt season proper eh?

Edited March 19, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[gagerg]

Some large patches of warm air up in the Arctic. Perhaps they are part of the large high pressure that has made its presence known in the Arctic.

[Gray-Wolf]

The current daily anom plot for Baffin makes scary viewing does it not?

I think those 'willing' to believe we had another 162yrs to wait for the next 97% surface melt across Greenland will have a bit of extra explaining to do come July....... or will they play the pedants card if it's only 96.5% surface melt???

The H.P. that has camped across the North of Greenland is set to start drawing warm airs up there (early melt onset?) but will also have impacts on the U.S. side of things. Are we looking for a similar balmy March to last years there ?(and another drought over the states that suffered last year???)

If we believe that low ice impacts Jet positioning and so blocking events/stuck weather patterns surely we are only going to see an intensification of that this year?

Ice already in disarray (Inc the M.Y. ice) and thinner than last years cover with extra 'peripheral over our side of the basin this year looking for an early melt out and the Fram Train gearing up as we speak......S'gonna be a heck of an early summer!!! (IMHO)

[gagerg]

With the Arctic cracking and implications for a melt out one has to wonder how early the ice could melt out.

[Gray-Wolf]

Images courtesy of A-Team over on Neven's blog showing the past months movement. Does it appear the Greenie High has mutated the beaufort gyre and Transpolar Drift into one big arc of export? Should the pattern persist into melt season we risk seeing the Greenland coast floatoff bring all the old ice into this export current??? With the ice now fracturing throughout the basin we have a mush of very mobile ice, most of it FYI.

I now have serious concerns for the speed of the 'bulk melt' part of the season and also the implications for the bottom melt end of the season. This year will leave folk in no doubt as to the extent we have altered our world/climate and well beyond a point of no return.(IMHO)

[Gray-Wolf]

Are we close to calling Ice Max?

Both CT Area and JAXA extent have not regained up to previous max levels and we are now beyond equinox so on the cusp of melt beginning at the peripheries?

If so then the Max area occured a month earlier than last years???

[4wd]

So that would be closer to normal then.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Are we close to calling Ice Max?

Both CT Area and JAXA extent have not regained up to previous max levels and we are now beyond equinox so on the cusp of melt beginning at the peripheries?

If so then the Max area occured a month earlier than last years???

Close, but wouldn't quite risk it yet.

With NSIDC extent, we're just ~80k off the maximum. With CT it's a slightly safer call, as we're now nearly 240k off the maximum, while with IJIS we're 170k off the max. As is evident by the fracturing event, the ice is much more mobile currently than normal, so a sudden southward lurch of low concentration ice could easily see the maximum beaten, so I'd say another week or so before calling.

[Gray-Wolf]

Ta BFTV!

Hiya 4, it's been an odd winter up there don't you think? Certainly different than others post 07'? With the pack so weak and broken what do you think will occur over the coming melt season?

[Gray-Wolf]

What's left of the ice in beaufort.

[barrel1234]

With temps still reaching -20 around much of the arctic surely these cracks could be due to compression, for much of the last part of the winter there has been a general clockwise swirling movement of ice arounf the pole, and although it could just be me I havn't seen the same amount of export out of fram than I have seen in previous years. If you take the glass half full attitude it could be seen as ice being moved around exposed areas quickly re-freezed and general compression in other areas thickening the ice?

Just a thought.

[Radiating Dendrite]

Surely moving sheets of ice are going to crack?

The moon of Europa is all ice and is full of cracks! No global warming going on there.

Anyway........I bow down to those with better knowledge.