Arctic Sea Ice Discussion 2014/2015: The Refreeze

[Geordiesnow]

Arctic ice reaches 2006 levels

Arctic ice extent is certainly below average for this time of year, but this is largely due to the lack of ice in the Sea of Okhotsk. This has no effect on the overall state of Arctic ice, not least because it is not in the Arctic! In any event, this ice quickly goes in spring.

Currently, however, ice extent is higher than it was at this date in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2011.

  http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html

 

I agree to an extent with that but with the Bering having so little ice this winter and very few cold plunges then no doubt because of weather and perhaps other factors, the SST's here do look above average which may have a negative feedback to the sea ice later on in the melt season.

 

Some rather interesting synotopics coming up with high pressure forecast across the centre of the Arctic. It will help too keep the central basin quite cold and with the winds going clockwise around high pressure, it may help to kick the Beaufort Gyre into gear and get some of that thick ice away Beaufort and more towards the Central Arctic and the Chuckchi sea where ice thicknesses look quite poor. It will help to keep winds in Laptev towards a favorable direction and may allow ice to thicken somewhat here. 

 

There is also the other interesting but potentially concerning set up of high pressure developing over Russia with low pressure over the Norwegian sea helping to create a Southerly/SE'ly winds over Barents and Kara Seas with winds then heading right into the fram stright and this pattern looks like it could stick around for a good while, it could potentially leave Barents looking quite vulnable as we head into the melt season and it could lead to the ice edge being quite far North which will have an impact on extent figures. Its one area to watch very closely for sure, I don't think the set up will affect the ice in Kara too badly(unless polynyas start to form on the Russian coastline) due to temps on land especially at night will be quite cold despite the fairly high upper air temps, if this set up occured around 1 and a half months later or during the summer season, then the ice in the Kara sea would no doubt melt quite rapidly despite ice being fairly thick here. 

 

Edit: Quick question, are the snow cover charts on CT not updating? Looking from the start of March to now, snowcover looks exactly the same yet looking on another site, the snowline in the western states look further North than CT.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Geordiesnow

[BornFromTheVoid]

JAXA daily extent back to lowest on record, 19.9k below the same date in 2006.

[Gray-Wolf]

I know we all know that currently max's do not give indications of min's but will there come a time that this relationship will emerge? I mean if we work back from 'ice free' ( less than 1 million for 5 consecutive years) then would we come across an extent/volume that, once beyond, we see a relationship between an early max and less ice come min?

 

This year we have a 4 week 'lead' on most other melt seasons. It is the 3rd year that we have seen major disruption to the pack over late winter ( crackopalypse event) so will we see the same outcome as the last 2 years or does such 'pre-conditioned ice' work another way with high transport/high melt synoptics over summer ( and not the cool,cloudy, low export we saw the past 2 seasons?)?

[4wd]

The extent graph lines all converge late spring and when the peripheral areas of ice have mostly gone.
There's more thick ice in the central basin then several previous years.
It will be another similar minimum to the last couple of years or even slightly higher.

[stewfox]

The extent graph lines all converge late spring and when the peripheral areas of ice have mostly gone.

There's more thick ice in the central basin then several previous years.

It will be another similar minimum to the last couple of years or even slightly higher.

 

That's how I see subject of course to a average or poor summer up there with average/ good conditions for ice retention (ie no late August storm breakers)

 

Ice thickness across the basin better then a few years ago.

 

Time for a the melt thread ?

[BornFromTheVoid]

While overall volume has improved since 2012, it's still well below the pre-2007 years so the pack is quite vulnerable.

Depending on weather conditions this year, I'd say a range from lowest on record to around 10th lowest is likely.

 

Anywho, I think it is time for a melt season thread.

[keithlucky]

Arctic ice almost identical to decade ago

Edited April 3, 2015 by keithlucky

[knocker]

PIOMAS April 2015

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2015/04/piomas-april-2015.html

[stewfox]

PIOMAS April 2015

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2015/04/piomas-april-2015.html

 

 

Great news for start of melt season

 

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Just like last month, Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers are relatively low for the time of year, and volume is still quite a bit higher than in previous years, thus average thickness is higher as well. This can clearly be seen on the PICT graph (the crude ice thickness measure I derive by dividing PIOMAS (PI) volume numbers with Cryosphere Today (CT) sea ice area numbers):

[Gray-Wolf]

Wish I was blessed with your confidence stew? 

 

I remember the likes of Four being oh so pleased back in 08' and 09' and looking forward to 2010 and what did we see? Volume crash. We have now seen 2 years of rebound and the only lesson the 'New Arctic' ( post 07') gives us is 'beware a volume crash on year 3............'

 

As I said last year we are either looking at a system change to the weather types we became used too post 07' or we are due another 'average' summer ( as brought us 2012) or even a return of the 'perfect melt storm' synoptics ( at the earliest 2017 so we may be spared for another couple of years!) and what then?

 

We have not seen the 'crackopalypse conditioned ice' face an 'average year' yet but smaller floes tell me to expect more rapid transport and higher melt rates ( smaller volume to surface area ratio) .