Arctic Ice Discussion 2014: the thaw...

[oldsnowywizard]

Born you seem to be getting grumpy and always snipe at others...can you go back to posting factual and balanced posts please .. Thank you...

on a positive note for once ... ice thickness is better than 2013 and 12. The warmer air doesn't appear to have damaged too much ice. ..let's hope the colder air moves back over the basin ...

[Devonian]

Born you seem to be getting grumpy and always snipe at others...can you go back to posting factual and balanced posts please .. Thank you...on a positive note for once ... ice thickness is better than 2013 and 12. The warmer air doesn't appear to have damaged too much ice. ..let's hope the colder air moves back over the basin ...

 

It's the provokers not the provoked that are the problem here...

[Devonian]

So Ocean heat is making Antarctic ice grow to record levels, and causing an 18% growth in thicker Arctic Ice. 

Very little is known, some groups like to claim otherwise from a political perspective. 

For example we could do with a lot less of the kind of comment like the above.

 

I mean, how can we know we know 'very little' - and at the same time quote a specific detail. Ridiculous.

[stewfox]

For example we could do with a lot less of the kind of comment like the above.

 

I mean, how can we know we know 'very little' - and at the same time quote a specific detail. Ridiculous.

 

It's the provokers not the provoked that are the problem here...

 

Posting facts is not 'provoking'

 

I think links to peer review papers on a subject such as 'Artic ocean heat hasn't fully managed to break through the halocline yet' would have been useful 

Edited July 31, 2014 by stewfox

[Devonian]

Posting facts is not 'provoking'

 

 

 

Agreed, and precisely! Banging on about politics isn't facts...

Edited July 31, 2014 by Devonian

[Nights King]

It is nice to see a second year of improvement up in the arctic even if it is maybe only temporary although we have another month or so left first before the fat lady starts singing

 

I wonder if we can get a third?

[BornFromTheVoid]

Born you seem to be getting grumpy and always snipe at others...can you go back to posting factual and balanced posts please .. Thank you...on a positive note for once ... ice thickness is better than 2013 and 12. The warmer air doesn't appear to have damaged too much ice. ..let's hope the colder air moves back over the basin ...

 

To the inherently biased, anything questioning a biased position will be seen as grumpy sniping

[keithlucky]

Slight increase in Arctic ice today

[Gray-Wolf]

JAXA down 48,000 km²  it also looks like Fram has sprung back into action as Greenland Sea saw an uptick in Area?

[keithlucky]

Slight increase in Arctic ice today

Arctic ice up 63000 sq km

Edited August 1, 2014 by keithlucky

[Geordiesnow]

Its pleasing to see how the ice has held up in the west this year and remains at 2m thick cf last year where we had open water in the west as per 2012 as well

 

Given the high arctic has had below average temps last 100 days not unexpected

 

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

 

 

http:////f1.nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_images/tctc91_simplify/attachicon.gifictn2012073118_2012073100_035_arcticictn.001.gif

 

http:////f1.nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_images/tctc91_simplify/attachicon.gifictn2013073118_2013072900_035_arcticictn.001.gif

 

http:////f1.nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_images/tctc91_simplify/attachicon.gifictn2014073018_2014072800_039_arcticictn.001.gif

 

I think its hard to compare this year to those years for the simple fact that during mid August last year, the HYCOM model thickness was upgraded and you can see this if you run the animation during August last year with a sudden increase in thickness in some parts. 

 

It does look like after a brief respite, we could see more southerlies into the Chukchi sea with again some very warm air and with open water more widespread, this could cause more in the way of bottom melt. Its interesting that the upcoming pattern is almost identical with very warm air on the Pacific side of the Arctic with just the Beaufort and Barants sea being the exceptions.

 

I certainly don't expect too see this years 'pattern' looking like last year, there is bound to be less ice on the Pacific side but way more ice on the Atlantic side so this may help the extent to be above 2013 come the end of the season. The ever increasing Laptev bite is still a worry though.

 

Its interesting to note Area has stalled and increased slightly at times, wonder what has caused this? 

[Nights King]

I have a question for you all -

 

When does the air over the arctic start to cool off? the sun is obviously still up until end of September but is it already cooling off before then? Is there an exact turning point when more heat is escaping than is incoming from the sun?

[Geordiesnow]

I have a question for you all -

 

When does the air over the arctic start to cool off? the sun is obviously still up until end of September but is it already cooling off before then? Is there an exact turning point when more heat is escaping than is incoming from the sun?

 

I believe its around Mid August or so when the effects of the sun wears off and most of the melting occurs from then until mid September is bottom based melt. You will see the effects of the sun waning in northern alitudes as the air starts too cool down also and those oranges across higher latitudes fades into more yellow and green colours and the PV becomes a bit more widespread(given the right set up of course) although the most obvious time too see this is around the start of September. 

 

No signs of any cooling off and infact the set up looks awful with a dipole developing, got to admit being a bit surprised by a slow down in area/extent but this could be down to ice spreading out and the cooler conditions in some parts of the Arctic but i'm afraid to say, things don't look good on the Pacific side of the Arctic at all. I expect the final shape of the Arctic too look similar to 2011 but hopefully with a bit more ice than then. 2013 had a lot more ice in many years on the Pacific side but because the Atlantic side retreat was so severe, it hampered the extent figures and I feel in some ways if these set ups persist, then its a little bit of a missed opportunity really to keep more thicker ice across the central basin in particular. 

[BornFromTheVoid]

I believe its around Mid August or so when the effects of the sun wears off and most of the melting occurs from then until mid September is bottom based melt. You will see the effects of the sun waning in northern alitudes as the air starts too cool down also and those oranges across higher latitudes fades into more yellow and green colours and the PV becomes a bit more widespread(given the right set up of course) although the most obvious time too see this is around the start of September. 

 

No signs of any cooling off and infact the set up looks awful with a dipole developing, got to admit being a bit surprised by a slow down in area/extent but this could be down to ice spreading out and the cooler conditions in some parts of the Arctic but i'm afraid to say, things don't look good on the Pacific side of the Arctic at all. I expect the final shape of the Arctic too look similar to 2011 but hopefully with a bit more ice than then. 2013 had a lot more ice in many years on the Pacific side but because the Atlantic side retreat was so severe, it hampered the extent figures and I feel in some ways if these set ups persist, then its a little bit of a missed opportunity really to keep more thicker ice across the central basin in particular. 

 

 

Yep, some of the strongest melt conditions of the whole years look like developing over the next week, lots of compaction and melting on the Pacific side. The pattern is similar to around this time in 2008, when extent dropped nearly 1 million km2 in 10 days.

The latest HYCOM model shows the ice thinning a huge amount around the N. Pole

[Gray-Wolf]

Should we see the expected 'thinning' then I would again warn folk that the last thing we would then need to see would be a 'di pole' autumn. With a good swathe of the 'good ice' now stacked over the drop off to Fram , and the ice now degrading to its thinnest, most mobile, then the last thing we would need would be a steady blow down into Fram? It might bring us some crisp autumnal weather but it could radically impact next melt season.

 

2012 appears to have lead to another 'shift' in the patterns we see across the basin with two summers showing a very 'sluggish' lack lustre melt season. The 1980's gave us some of the biggest volume drops we have on record and these losses were winter losses. Let us hope we are not slipping back into such synoptics as a drain on winter ice leaves us with more and more 'late formed' ice to face summer melt with.

 

We might all have become a little too focused on the spectacle of open waters to remember that ice can be lost all year. With the past two years of pack fragmentation we appear to have grown a pack ripe for export, and melt, under the right conditions? As posted previous 'infill ice' would cover the losses and the process of loss would 'expand' area so we might see the comical spectacle (al la 2012) of the deniers crying 'recovery' whilst those in the know seeing a disaster in the making?

 

Man's warming has brought down the volume of the pack to the point that we have concerns about open ocean Arctic but 'weather' will provide the initial mechanism for that first year of ice free waters.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Gray-Wolf

[4wd]

 

 

Man's warming has brought down the volume of the pack to the point that we have concerns about open ocean Arctic but 'weather' will provide the initial mechanism for that first year of ice free waters.

Write this all you want but there's no evidence for it.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Write this all you want but there's no evidence for it.

 

So you think the warming of the last century has had no effect on Arctic sea ice volume?

[Buriedundersnow]

Chris Beal â€@NJSnowFan 1h

Coldest Temps since spring being reported near the north pole today. Re-Freezing starting, Cam pict's 8/2 and 8/3 pic.twitter.com/0bCIdoP6fq

 

 

[Methuselah]

Write this all you want but there's no evidence for it.

No 4, there's plenty of evidence. What there isn't is proof? But then, as in all genuinely scientific endeavors, there never us proof...

[keithlucky]

Arctic ice still higher than 2007 2010 2011 2012 2013

[Crepuscular Ray]

Is that surface coverage or volume?

[BornFromTheVoid]

It's extent, CR, from NSIDC by the values it mentions.

 

Arctic ice still higher than 2007 2010 2011 2012 2013

 

And still lower than

1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009,

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Well I believe we are now entering the period I've voiced concerns over?  The fragmented pack has undergone its initial melt cycle and will now sit in those warmed waters for the next 4 weeks. There are areas where warm river discharge will also enhance the process for any ice driven into the area?

 

Sadly this week looks like a high melt week due to a HP parking over the basin so I don't think we are off to a good start?

 

As it is the Hycom model shows us losing our multiyear extension that runs through Beaufort into E.S.S. That is a real loss to those expecting the Gyre to recycle this ice back to the Canadian/Alaskan coast for another season of thickening via compaction and over riding ( this is the only way to rebuild the lost volume of the basin so to see it melt out each summer we have a plume of thicker ice in the gyre is very disheartening).

 

Let us wait for the September volume figure to really see how we did this summer ( even though it was no 2012 it appears to not be 2013 either?)

[mikeworst]

Why not, it is summer after all, you know melting and stuff.

[BornFromTheVoid]

With the CT area, we're now below the annual daily minima of the years 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1997.

We're within 250k of the minima of 1984, 1990, 1991 and 2001

We're within 500k of the 1993, 1995 and 2004 minima.