Arctic Ice Discussion 2013-14: the refreeze...

[BornFromTheVoid]

CT now lowest on record for the 14th, by 200k.

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

[knocker]

Interesting Temp Anomaly at the moment

 

 

[Gray-Wolf]

It amuses me that we have a dedicated 'Stratospheric warming' thread, with no shows all winter, meanwhile, down below we have seen high temp anoms all winter in the trop? Surely we can 'forecast' by looking at what the air mass next to ours is doing???

Edited February 16, 2014 by Gray-Wolf

[knocker]

It amuses me that we have a dedicated 'Stratospheric warming' thread, with no shows all winter, meanwhile, down below we have seen high temp anoms all winter in the trop? Surely we can 'forecast' by looking at what the air mass next to ours is doing???

 

I'm not sure that's entirely fair GW. Stratospheric.Troposphere Interactions are very important and very complicated to say the least. I have a book on the subject by Mohanakumar and it's way above my pay grade. I think the guys over on the stat. thread extremely knowledgeable.

 

Regarding this year I'm not sure there was nothing. I remember one NWS forecaster used what he considered an SSW in Dec/Jan to forecast the cold spell in the US and there was also an article in the Washington Post by the CWG.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/12/31/sudden-stratospheric-warming-could-it-lead-to-a-very-cold-january-in-d-c/

 

And

 

Stratospheric Phenomenon Is Bringing Frigid Cold to U.S

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/stratospheric-phenomenon-is-bringing-frigid-cold-to-us-15479

Edited February 17, 2014 by knocker

[Gray-Wolf]

Sorry Knocks , I was trying to highlight the wholesale B.A.U. across the general weather threads when , what to me are, extraordinary things are now beginning to occur in the weather system due to the warming our planet has undergone, not least in the Arctic.

 

If some of those Guys could just grapple with the scale of losses to the way the 'Old Arctic ' was , only 20 years ago?, I'm sure that they might look at our planet with fresh eyes?

 

As it is I suspect that 07' is a nothing and the 'invisible losses' of the late 70's and 80's just that to them?

 

We spend our time here trying to help folk see , and be aware, of the changes occurring only to be met with minority denial and majority apathy...... when the subject they care about is altering , in line with predicted changes, right before their eyes.

 

I'm sure the linkage between strat and trop is fascinating..... The cooling in response to trop warming yet another indicator of the wholesale changes we are now seeing but is that shift mentioned?

[knocker]

Not a problem GW. Remember this paper from 18 months ago.

 

Stratosphere targets deep sea to shape climate: North Atlantic 'Achilles heel' lets upper atmosphere affect the abyss

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120923141212.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28Oceanography+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

[knocker]

Really just to emphasis what BFTV has already posted.

 

Arctic Heat Pushes Sea Ice Into Record Low Territory During February

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/arctic-heat-pushes-sea-ice-into-record-low-territory-during-february/

[joggs]

Its so intruiging what is happening up there for right or wrong imo.

[knocker]

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that the temperature in the Arctic increased around 7°C in this century.

 

http://arcticportal.org/news/25-other-news/1164-higher-temperatures-thicker-ice-

 

 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—It’s not a secret that the Arctic Ocean is turning from white to blue as sea ice retreats. But a video compressing 25 years of satellite data into a single minute still drew gasps in a session here yesterday at the annual meeting of AAAS, which publishes Science. The movie, created late last year with data from satellites and buoys, shows how each year’s sea ice cover pulses like an amoeba, expanding and contracting with the seasons—and ending almost every summer a little smaller than the year before. The video shows one reason why: The ice is getting younger. The Arctic Ocean continually loses thick, old ice, the kind that easily survives a warm summer, as currents sweep it out the Fram Strait, east of Greenland. Because of warmer Arctic temperatures, little multiyear ice forms to replace what’s lost. Over 25 years, the proportion of the ocean covered by ice at least four years old has dwindled from 26% to 7%, while the remaining ice is mainly thin, the product of one winter. That quickly melts the following summer, leaving the ocean barer and bluer than before. To participants in the AAAS session, devoted to how the Arctic ice loss could affect everything from commerce to weather patterns to national security, the video was a call to action

 

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/02/video-polar-disaster-movie?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cryonews+%28CryoNews%29

Edited February 17, 2014 by knocker

[Gray-Wolf]

http://descrier.co.uk/science/2014/02/melting-sea-ice-making-arctic-darker-amplifying-global-warming/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=melting-sea-ice-making-arctic-darker-amplifying-global-warming

 

Well we knew that snow/ice losses would impact albedo but already account for 25% of the warming caused by CO2??? If we consider that most of this period had a complete ice pack and so earlier snow loss accounted for a good portion of that warming the impacts jump into sharp focus. Since 07' we have seen a vast area of waters open up to augment that warming signal. In 20 years time will we see the import from the Arctic match, or exceed that of CO2 at that point?

 

To me this seems likely if not probable?

 

We all saw the impacts of 2012 on the Greenland ice sheet Albedo and an ice free Arctic will just exacerbate this trend bringing not only a dark Arctic ocean but also a switch from Ice sheet to heat sink.

[Tamara]

It amuses me that we have a dedicated 'Stratospheric warming' thread, with no shows all winter, meanwhile, down below we have seen high temp anoms all winter in the trop? Surely we can 'forecast' by looking at what the air mass next to ours is doing???

This is a fatuous, disrespectful and quite ridiculous post GW. Its one thing believing you a prophet spokesman for the climate world without extending such a belief into other specialities such as the Stratosphere.

 

The amplification of weather patterns attributed to the disrupted arctic sea ice state (for whatever underlying reasons one believes are behind that) as well as other tropospheric factors under easterly QBO stratospheric conditions (as seen last winter); and through the actions of an SSW contributed to the -AO state that pushed cold air to mid latitudes this side of the arctic resulting in very starkly different weather surface conditions to where we are now a year later

 

This year there has also been significant amplification of the pattern in the NH due to various tropospheric factors, and with the arctic ice patterns also once again one of the contributory factors towards the meridionality seen. However, under westerly QBO conditions (assisting the westerly gyre and strength of the polar vortex) this amplification has been on the other side of the NH with the result that the colder anomalies have been over Canada and parts of the US.

 

This highlights just one basic essence of the tropospheric/stratospheric interaction that your friend correctly commented on up the page. There has been no SSW or sudden stratospheric warming this year - research suggested that a +QBO/solar maximum might make one possible but the strength of the +QBO phase and anomolously cold mid levels of the stratosphere has prohibited this.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Tamara תָּמָר

[keithlucky]

/http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2014/02/thicker-on-top-higher-down-under/

Edited February 18, 2014 by keithlucky

[Gray-Wolf]

This is a fatuous, disrespectful and quite ridiculous post GW. Its one thing believing you a prophet spokesman for the climate world without extending such a belief into other specialities such as the Stratosphere.

 

The amplification of weather patterns attributed to the disrupted arctic sea ice state (for whatever underlying reasons one believes are behind that) as well as other tropospheric factors under easterly QBO stratospheric conditions (as seen last winter); and through the actions of an SSW contributed to the -AO state that pushed cold air to mid latitudes this side of the arctic resulting in very starkly different weather surface conditions to where we are now a year later

 

This year there has also been significant amplification of the pattern in the NH due to various tropospheric factors, and with the arctic ice patterns also once again one of the contributory factors towards the meridionality seen. However, under westerly QBO conditions (assisting the westerly gyre and strength of the polar vortex) this amplification has been on the other side of the NH with the result that the colder anomalies have been over Canada and parts of the US.

 

This highlights just one basic essence of the tropospheric/stratospheric interaction that your friend correctly commented on up the page. There has been no SSW or sudden stratospheric warming this year - research suggested that a +QBO/solar maximum might make one possible but the strength of the +QBO phase and anomolously cold mid levels of the stratosphere has prohibited this.

 

Thank you for your kind words Tam.

 

I explained in the post below that the post was aimed at the total lack of comment from the general weather section about the very odd conditions across the Arctic basin this year and the impacts they must bring to adjacent areas ( and their impacts further down the line).

 

With conditions changing so rapidly across the Arctic do you really think they demand no comment? Are you of the opinion that QBO trumps regional changes driven by warming?

 

EDIT: Back to the Arctic. This was not the refreeze I expected to see? I knew we would fall back into the pack as the basin froze but i really did not expect to see such low ice extent/Area develop in the latter part of the season? Some of the maps are even showing a band of weak ice across the middle of the basin???

 

I think that we can truthfully say the chances of seeing a repeat year of 2013 now seem very unlikely? As such I have to worry about what we will see this melt season. we know 'average years' can now be as destructive as the 'perfect storm ' was in 07' as we all saw what 2012 did to the basin?

 

My simple head says the chances of seeing an average or warm year must outweigh the chances of seeing another cool one? If it were a die and 2 sides represent cool , 2 sides represented average and two side represent warm would you expect a cool side to turn up on most throws?

Edited February 19, 2014 by Gray-Wolf

[BornFromTheVoid]

Lowest for the time of year on NSIDC extent, 2nd lowest for both IJIS/JAXA and CT.

 

Recent CT increases seem to be mostly from the Gulf of St Lawrence, which is at the largest area since 2001. Waves of intensely cold north westerlies look like continuing to impact this area, so perhaps a push towards one of the largest sea ice areas on record could be possible for that region.

Across the Arctic, the coming 3 days look the best for sea ice gains for a while. Cold air over the Bering Sea (currently challenging for the lowest winter area on record) and short lived northerlies should allow some further gains here. Cold air is never too far from the Sea of Okhotsk either, so perhaps some gains in that region also.

 

T6

 

 

 

T72

 

 

 

After that, milder air and southerly winds once again take hold across the Bering Strait, while nothing particularly cold effects the Barents Sea, so slow gains there are the best hope. The Gulf of St Lawrence and the Sea of Okhotsk hold the best hope for decent extent and area increases in the medium term.

[Geordiesnow]

 

After that, milder air and southerly winds once again take hold across the Bering Strait, while nothing particularly cold effects the Barents Sea, so slow gains there are the best hope. The Gulf of St Lawrence and the Sea of Okhotsk hold the best hope for decent extent and area increases in the medium term.

 

Which means nothing when it comes to the summer melt season and I have to say the charts look well quite awful in my eyes, the awful pattern which has kept sea ice low in recent winters in the Barents and Kara seas looks like coming back with a displaced russian high and mild southerly winds. The ice in the Barents sea looks woeful and shame too see it like that after the early season promise. Kara at least looks extensive but with open water so extensive across the Barents then that ice is more vulnable to melting surely. 

 

I really do think unless the Barents Sea recovers then we could see a melt out in the North Pole this summer from the Atlantic side of the Arctic and who would of thought that 5-10 years ago! We came fairly close to it last year and if conditions don't improve and we get very low sea ice there, I do fear we may see an ice free pole this year. 

 

I don't think you can speculate either way what sort of summer we will see, why can't we not get another cool summer? Not impossible and if we do and if it helps to retain more sea ice across the Pacific side of the Arctic then all the better. Extent last year would of been higher if it was not at record breaking low levels on the Atlantic side but it should be an interesting summer season none the less. 

[VillagePlank]

Of note is the observation that sea ice has dropped below the normal range,

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

Big jump in the IJIS/JAXA extent this morning of about 110k, with much of the growth coming from the Bering, Barents, Greenland Seas and the Gulf of St Lawrence. Enough to lift it to 3rd lowest for the time of year. Not long until we hit the 14 million km² mark.

 

In the medium term, both the GFS and ECM appear to set up a +ve dipole like pattern. In general, this seems to correlate with larger extent values in Spring due to enhanced ice export, but it can also warm large parts of the Arctic quite substantially, putting it at greater risk later in the melt season.

[oldsnowywizard]

with much of the winter having warmer than normal temps over the areas that count, it will be interesting to see what happens in the summer... .. can you add some charts to back up the forecast of dipole in Spring BFT? Spring is a month away so it might not happen this way...

 

there will still be 2 months of cold up there so lets hope the cold air tht has been smashing through the NE US retreats back to where it is supposed to be

[BornFromTheVoid]

with much of the winter having warmer than normal temps over the areas that count, it will be interesting to see what happens in the summer... .. can you add some charts to back up the forecast of dipole in Spring BFT? Spring is a month away so it might not happen this way...

 

there will still be 2 months of cold up there so lets hope the cold air tht has been smashing through the NE US retreats back to where it is supposed to be

 

Here's the dipole appearing on the ECM

 

 

You can see the strong ridge centred toward the Beaufort sea and Canadian Archipelago/N. Greenland. Even at this time of year, some relatively mild air can get pulled toward the Bering strait area and the ice export through the Fram strait enhanced under dipole conditions.

 

From now until the end of March is the typical time for the maximum extent and area values to be recorded, so that cold air needs to retreat back north soon!

[Gray-Wolf]

Should the Dipole set up should we expect some negative conditioning of the pack as forces break it apart prior to the melt season? A 'crackopalypse' event may prove useful in full re-freeze ( where leads have time to freeze and thicken and slabs can 'over ride' each other to 'thicken up' the pack) but on the verge of melt season?

 

Surely the mixture of export and fragmentation is not what you need to see as we enter the melt season?

[knocker]

Temp anomaly

 

[knocker]

Global sea ice area anomaly

Edited February 24, 2014 by knocker

[BornFromTheVoid]

According to Cryosphere Today, we have a chance of recording the lowest winter sea ice area values for the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, Barents Sea and Greenland sea. A shift in winds during March could change this, but something to keep an eye on nonetheless.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

[Gray-Wolf]

All those braying " Recovery" not 6 months since need take note of this and recognise that sea ice is in a perilous state never before witnessed by man. Last year's poor summer was our best chance at clawing back time before the loss of the sea ice but but that chance now appears lost?

 

Should we see another 'average' year ( or warmer due to a nino Summer?) then expect a shift back to 2012 levels ( or worse) but take note of the 'low ice areas' as we move into summer as they gave rise to the record energy absorbed in the basin last year...... a year with less ice will smash that record and unleash more 'weather weirding' as a direct result.

[knocker]

Still going for a large anomaly in a week. More to the point supports the tentatave ridging over the UK with some more stability and a tad warmer.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2014 by knocker