Arctic Ice Discussion. 2013 Melt Season

[BornFromTheVoid]

You can be sure that any misrepresentations of the melt pool will be from the media or individual bloggers.

 

Anyway, I'd expect the area measures to show increased losses soon, but maybe give the extent another day or so, as the winds have sent a lot of low concentration ice back into Beaufort and Chukchi.

[Gray-Wolf]

Surely web cam 2 is near to breaking ( and draining) soon? Could it be that we see a smooth transition to ocean and the central area is on a 'raft midst open water .if we look to the mid July images you can see the 'ridge' that the equipment sit on.

 

EDIT:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50775/abstract

 

Saw the above and wondered what was replacing the advected waters from the Arctic ocean? Are we seeing a very big alteration beginning that leads to disruptions of ocean currents world wide?

Edited July 27, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[keithlucky]

Arctic forecasted to below freezing for the next few weeks Arctic ice free summers lol.

[Methuselah]

Arctic forecasted to below freezing for the next few weeks Arctic ice free summers lol.

Who said that the Arctic would be ice-free this year?

[keithlucky]

Who said that the Arctic would be ice-free this year?

 

http://t.co/ad4cHFEusZ

[Methuselah]

http://t.co/ad4cHFEusZ

Fair enough, keith. That'll teach me to take things more seriously!  What a load of cobblers' that one was!

[keithlucky]

You may find the latest north pole cam images quite interesting

 

Lots of surface melt water about

 

 

We have to first main storm of the summer starting tonight. The ECM makes it a 48-72 hour event, mainly impacting the Chukchi, Beaufort, CAA and Central Arctic.

 

t24 .......................................................................... t48 ................................... ..................................t72

 

The storm is not as strong, and the ice is not as fragmented as the early August event last year, but the effects should still be interesting to watch.

 

Another area to keep an eye on the just east of the N. Pole. The region here that has had somewhat low concentration ice for a number of weeks, and is beginning to form open water regions on the extent and area images. This can be seen in Wipneus' great work on the sea ice forum.

Red pixels show concentration dropping below 15%, blue are going above 15%.

Wipneus amrs2.GIF

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,382.200.html

More lies From the GW lobby they are getting desperate now http://m.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/did-the-media-just-prove-north-pole-is-not-melting/15739869

[BornFromTheVoid]

More lies From the GW lobby they are getting desperate now http://m.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/did-the-media-just-prove-north-pole-is-not-melting/15739869

 

Why did you quote my post?

[knocker]

Published on Jul 24, 2013

The North Pole, great bastion of eternal cold and barren ice, is a LAKE. The sea ice has been shrinking for decades. The lake at the top of the world is a shallow and purely fresh water made from melted ice. See it for yourself on this time-lapse video cam.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/index.html
 

 

Edited July 27, 2013 by knocker

[keithlucky]

Why did you quote my post?

Sorry Born from The Void should have pasted the pictures.

Edited July 27, 2013 by keithlucky

[4wd]

That cam isn't even anywhere near the North Pole, it has drifted a considerable distance to the south.2 or 3 years ago one of the cams toppled over into a pool, this one hasn't - indicating there's reasonably solid stuff under a shallow surface pool.Also it's a wide angle lens giving a false impression that a moderately sized pond is an expansive lake.

[be cause]

That cam isn't even anywhere near the North Pole, it has drifted a considerable distance to the south.

2 or 3 years ago one of the cams toppled over into a pool, this one hasn't - indicating there's reasonably solid stuff under a shallow surface pool.

Also it's a wide angle lens giving a false impression that a moderately sized pond is an expansive lake.

 

 can it drift in any other direction ?

[stewfox]

After steep losses in the first part of July , which was to be expected given the relative high starting point at the end of June and the state of the ice, we see another below average fall today on IJIS today of just 23k, well below the average.

 

5m-6m still not written off yet, cant see a sub 3m now as many had feared.

 

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

[BornFromTheVoid]

After steep losses in the first part of July , which was to be expected given the relative high starting point at the end of June and the state of the ice, we see another below average fall today on IJIS today of just 23k, well below the average.

 

5m-6m still not written off yet, cant see a sub 3m now as many had feared.

 

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

 

Who are the many that predicted a sub 3 million minimum? What kind minimum are you going for at this stage?

Edited July 28, 2013 by BornFromTheVoid

[Geordiesnow]

After steep losses in the first part of July , which was to be expected given the relative high starting point at the end of June and the state of the ice, we see another below average fall today on IJIS today of just 23k, well below the average.

 

5m-6m still not written off yet, cant see a sub 3m now as many had feared.

 

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

 

I wonder if the slow down in losses is down to ice being spread out somewhat. It would seem the ice in the Laptev Sea has been spread out to some extent as well in the Beaufort Sea also. 

 

I did predict this storm probably won't do much damage extent wise but in the long term it probably will due to its location of the storm being in thicker ice so it will break it up even more and we can appear too see that in the ice thicknesses charts. The good news is that this storm faded much quicker than earlier model predictions so the impacts are not as bad as it could of been but I can't help but still be worried about the state of the ice in the long term when I keep looking at those ice thicknesses charts, infact they look quite depressing tbh. 

 

There has also been a trend in the last few July's of extent slowing down as the ice spreads out but starts to decline again pretty quickly so be interesting what will happen this year. Going by what the models are hinting at and looking at the 30% coverage, I would say its unlikely we will be near the 2012 ice extent line soon but I'm reluctant to say we will stay well away from the 2012 line by September due to the state of the pack, especially that area to the East of the North Pole as it has been pointed out a few times so far this melt season. 

 

That said, the days are now getting shorter in the Arctic and the longer this years extent line stay away from the 2012 line, the less likely a new minimum will be recorded. 

Edited July 28, 2013 by Geordiesnow

[stewfox]

Who are the many that predicted a sub 3 million minimum? What kind minimum are you going for at this stage?

 

I mention 4.9m (IJIS 15%) on 7th June (in the poll thread) I see no reason to change that at present

 

Arctic Sea ice extent 30% or greater (DMI) holding up well as we go into August , latest storm less impact then feared. Another drop off of temps North of 80N

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/

 

ps Apologies I meant sub 4m , very few if any suggested sub 3m

Edited July 28, 2013 by stewfox

[BornFromTheVoid]

I mention 4.9m (IJIS 15%) on 7th June (in the poll thread) I see no reason to change that at present

 

Arctic Sea ice extent 30% or greater (DMI) holding up well as we go into August , latest storm less impact then feared. Another drop off of temps North of 80N

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/

 

ps Apologies I meant sub 4m , very few if any suggested sub 3m

 

Is 4.9 your guess for the monthly average then? There is a slight difference between the IJIS and NSIDC extent values, with the IJIS minimum tending to be a little higher.

I'd agree that sub 4 million is looking unlikely at this stage. I'd punt for a mid to high 4s finish if conditions remain good, low 4s if the -ve AO arrives, and mid to high 3s if we see a strong positive dipole.

 

Yep, it does look like cooling down again (relative to the norm anyway). No signs of strong melt conditions appearing in the near term, but bottom melt can be a big player at this time of year, and those SSTs do look quite high in and around the ice edges (though not as high as last year).

[4wd]

Cam #2 seems a bit intermittent but this image from today looks like the celebrated meltpool has frozen over in a blizzard.



 

[4wd]

Actually this is the latest

[Methuselah]

Cam #2 seems a bit intermittent but this image from today looks like the celebrated meltpool has frozen over in a blizzard.

 

So why is there liquid water on the lens?

[4wd]

Looks like the pool drained away during a windy period.

[Methuselah]

Actually this is the latest

Okey dokey!  

[4wd]

So why is there liquid water on the lens?

It would be hovering round freezing same as typical snow here.

[BornFromTheVoid]

From the NPEO

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/WebCams.html

 

Their FAQs might be of interest here

 

 

1) Is that the ocean melting through the ice or is it really a lake?

It is a small shallow lake resting on top of the ice. The water is almost completely fresh because it comes from melted snow and sea ice.

2) Why do the images from Web Cameras #1 and #2 look so different? Are they in different locations?

The two cameras are on the same major ice floe, but the wide-angle lenses of the cameras make things look much more distant than they actually are. Thus the highly variable character of the surface is not clear, especially for Web Camera 2, which is only giving images from inside the melt pond.

3) Are you alarmed at the appearance of the water near the North Pole?

No, melt ponds form every year, and considering Web Camera 1, the melt pond coverage at this location (the cameras and buoys have drifted to about 85°N, 5°W) looks pretty typical for this time of year and this location. Actually, we are more concerned about the extensive melt pond coverage that we have found on the Alaskan side of the Arctic Ocean as part of our Office of Naval Research-funded Seasonal Ice Zone Reconnaissance Surveys on U.S. Coast Guard Arctic Domain Awareness flights.

 

 

4) Is the appearance of the pond due to global warming?

No, not specifically. These melt ponds are a normal part of the seasonal cycle of the sea ice. With respect to global warming, we are more concerned when we see warm air temperatures in the winter that inhibit ice growth and the appearance of heat in the ocean that would melt the bottom surface of the ice.

 

 

 

 

 

[stewfox]

A drop of 94.1k in the NSIDC extent, close to average. It's still enough to take us closer to the 3 lowest years on record, 07, 11 and 12. We're now just 80.8k off 2007.

Just 82k/day now needed to record the largest July extent drop on record

 

Are we still on target for the lowest July drop 'on record'