Arctic Sea Ice Discussion 2016: Melt Season

[BornFromTheVoid]

ADS extent lowest on record by about 196k. The melt is currently 18 days ahead of 2012, and 7 days ahead of last year. Things looking interesting to say the least.

[shuggee]

Fresh thread now we're into open melt season...

[BornFromTheVoid]

Another big loss yesterday means 2016 is currently lowest on record by 258k. We're now 8 days ahead of the 2015 (-530,727km2) melt and 17 days ahead of 2012(-1,053.764km2)

[reef]

Which data is cryosphere today using? It seems to be all over the place!

[BornFromTheVoid]

9 minutes ago, reef said:

Which data is cryosphere today using? It seems to be all over the place!

It's based off the same data that the NSIDC use for their graphs, so it's picking up on the defective sensor issues. NSIDC have just stopped releasing extent data until it's sorted.

You can see a lot of "false ice" in the Bering sea and Okhotsk.

[knocker]

Cryosat-2 confirms: sea ice volume is low

Quote

Last month I made a comparison of CryoSat-2 sea ice volume distribution maps for the 2015/2016 Winter analysis, but it was off because the dates didn't exactly match. Better images have emerged during this year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (more on that later this week):

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/04/cryosat-2-confirms-sea-ice-volume-is-low.html

[Gray-Wolf]

Can i just lay this out for folk 'cause I get the impression that some are blissfully unaware of it.

In 2007 we had a big melt year. This was due to ,what became known as, 'a perfect melt storm' of high melt forcings and high export of ice out of the basin.

Since then we have not seen a melt season display high melt/high export for all of the season ( like 07'). We have had good years for ice retention ( 08',09',2013,2014) and average years for melt/export. These 'Average' years brought us the volume record in 2010 and the area/extent/volume records of 2012.

At some point , in the future, we will have a basin where ice forms over winter but melts out over summer whatever the weather ( as we see in Hudson bay?).

I believe we are a couple of 'good' ( sunny with high export) summers away from the start of this process ( initially ice will return after the melt out years and , should it be a good ice retention year, survive the melt season so the initial phase of 'ice free' will be sporadic but moving toward permanent ice free summers)

Are we about to see one of the melt season that will enable this process to begin ? With the earliest return of the 'perfect melt storm' 2017 this summer may well leave us with the ice to fend off such an assault so this year might prove pivotal?

[BornFromTheVoid]

ADS sea ice extent is now lowest on record more than 350k and has dropped below 12.5 million km2 5 days earlier than the previous record. We're now 9 days ahead of last years melt, and 17 days ahead of 2012.

https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html?N

[Gray-Wolf]

It appears to me, from my travels around the world wide web, that there are a lot of folk a tad twitchy about this year due to the preconditioning of the ice, which we have seen over the winter, ahead of this summers melt? We all know that we are still dependent on the weather we see over the season but we also know that , in the past , 'average' weather years have brought us records.

This year an 'average year' looks likely to set records.

But what if we see that rarest of beasties, a 'good' year for melt/export, roll around this melt season? What then?

Folk might view me as a bit of a worrier........ let me share something I just learned ( via the good folk over at ASIF). To melt 1 gram of ice takes 80 calories of energy. To raise the temp of 1 gram of water by 1c takes 1 calorie. Do you see why I fear the energy that once spent all summer employed in ice melt once that ice is gone? Do you see why I worry?

Edited April 28, 2016 by Gray-Wolf

[stewfox]

11 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

ADS sea ice extent is now lowest on record more than 350k and has dropped below 12.5 million km2 5 days earlier than the previous record. We're now 9 days ahead of last years melt, and 17 days ahead of 2012.

https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html?N

When you consider where 2012 ended a interesting start.

[Geordiesnow]

13 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

It appears to me, from my travels around the world wide web, that there are a lot of folk a tad twitchy about this year due to the preconditioning of the ice, which we have seen over the winter, ahead of this summers melt? We all know that we are still dependent on the weather we see over the season but we also know that , in the past , 'average' weather years have brought us records.

This year an 'average year' looks likely to set records.

But what if we see that rarest of beasties, a 'good' year for melt/export, roll around this melt season? What then?

Folk might view me as a bit of a worrier........ let me share something I just learned ( via the good folk over at ASIF). To melt 1 gram of ice takes 80 calories of energy. To raise the temp of 1 gram of water by 1c takes 1 calorie. Do you see why I fear the energy that once spent all summer employed in ice melt once that ice is gone? Do you see why I worry?

I think the ice conditions in both the Beaufort Sea and Kara seas are a real cause for concern, both areas looking worse than 2012 and the weather conditions in the Beaufort don't look like changing at all so that massive hole could very well get worse. The ice in Kara looks very vulnable to melt due to a relatively poor refreezing season although conditions and wind direction may make the ice hold on for a tad longer.

The ice is in a vulnable state and I think even with average weather conditions, records could be broken. What the Arctic needs is a cool slack weather pattern but we know this is not likely to be the case.

[BornFromTheVoid]

ADS extent now lowest on record by over 380k. We could stop melting for 5 days before a previous year would catch us.

[SMU]

I think this years melt & expected record smallest coverage is almost to be expected -

At this stage my thoughts are not that we may break the lowest record but by how much -

Since winter Ive had the World Meto office FB page liked on my phone & nearly every update was commentary about heat records being broken over the arctic - circa 6c & above.

all relating to the global 1c ( or 2c?) threshold being broken-

also record warmth & iceloss over greenland has featured on there.

Come Septemeber I think we will be looking at a picture of ice cover never seen before in its sparcity....

S

Edited April 30, 2016 by Steve Murr

[BornFromTheVoid]

At 12,293,447km2, ADS extent now lowest on record by over 410k. That gap should shrink over the coming week though, as 2006 saw a large loss in early May, dropping almost half a million in the next 6 days to 12.19 million km2.

[Don]

18 hours ago, Steve Murr said:

I think this years melt & expected record smallest coverage is almost to be expected -

At this stage my thoughts are not that we may break the lowest record but by how much -

Since winter Ive had the World Meto office FB page liked on my phone & nearly every update was commentary about heat records being broken over the arctic - circa 6c & above.

all relating to the global 1c ( or 2c?) threshold being broken-

also record warmth & iceloss over greenland has featured on there.

Come Septemeber I think we will be looking at a picture of ice cover never seen before in its sparcity....

S

Scary stuff this really!

[Gray-Wolf]

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

Well we've come this far into the year without seeing DMI dip below the average line? every record year thus far has been below average by this point in the year???? Will we see full summer temps rise above past max's for summer ( normally pegged around freezing by melting..... no ice, no melting ,temps rise)

JAXA saw a near century break today ( 98) with the forecast looking likely to see similar continue ? Bering and Okhotsk look to lose their ice and Baffin ,Kara and Barentsz also looking likely to lose ice over the coming week.

We have not even seen melt ponds yet !!!

[knocker]

It's looking quite warm for the next 10 days concluding:

[knocker]

Scientists at EGU 2016 discuss whether Arctic sea ice will reach a record low this summer

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

Bad news from the NSIDC. It will be a minimum of two months before the sea ice index data is regularly updated again, following the sensor failure on the DMSP F17.

http://nsidc.org/the-drift/data-update/sea-ice-index-processing-suspended/

[BornFromTheVoid]

ADS extent currently over 500k below last year, and 816k below 2012.

We could stop melting completely and remain lowest on record until the 11th

[knocker]

Beaufort under relentless (high) pressure

Quote

When I wrote the Beaufort under early pressure blog post last month, I didn't quite expect this unprecedented pressure (timing and magnitude) to keep up for so long. High pressure areas tend to be short-lived in the Arctic, but this one was still going strong when the Beaufort quick update was published. Now, almost three weeks later, things still haven't completely calmed down, and this animation of satellite images showing weekly changes from March 30th to May 4th provides an astonishing sight:

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/05/beaufort-under-relentless-high-pressure.html

[Gray-Wolf]

It's very early in the season to hold worries, lots of weather between now and sea ice min, but with things so messy it's hard not to! when I think of May I think of the start of melt ponding on the ice and the lessening of ice albedo this brings. What I see on the ground is a huge expanse of open ( dark) water in Beaufort. The coastal waters will already be warmed by the time we get the river surges (as their ice gives way) pushing warm water into Beaufort. I see the possibility for record low ice in Beaufort this year?

Beaufort used to be the 'ice maker' of the basin with the Beaufort Gyre maturing and thickening ice before releasing it into the basin. Over a decade it has become an area that sees aggressive melt each year and the spinning of MY ice into high melt zones over summer....... effectively doing the exact opposite of its old function!

[Singularity]

I see we've passed the 12 million mark now. About 10 days ahead of last year and half a month after the next fastest (I'm on mobile so can't check the stats accurately).

[BornFromTheVoid]

9 hours ago, Singularity said:

I see we've passed the 12 million mark now. About 10 days ahead of last year and half a month after the next fastest (I'm on mobile so can't check the stats accurately).

About 7 days earlier than last year, which was also the previous earliest year to drop below 12 million.

As of this morning, we're almost 900k below 2012, and about 478k below last year.

The Alaskan side of the Arctic is still disintegrating, with the Beaufort gyre now churning the ice up way into the central pack, with the cracks radiating out close to the Atlantic edge! Never seen anything like it this early.
(from the sea ice forum)

 

And now, the models are coming suggesting high pressure building up from Alaska and over the Pacific side of the Arctic, bringing some very mild air with it.

 

It seems that the only thing remaining that would make matters worse is a spell of widespread high pressure over most of the Arctic. This is the time of year when the formation of melt ponds on the surface of the ice can prime the pack for big losses later in the melt season, as happened in 2012. This happens by changing the surface from bright reflective snow to relatively dark surface water, right when the Arctic is going through the peak insolation with a strong summer sun.

[Singularity]

Any thoughts on the potential for the giant fires in Canada to darken regions of the ice surface in the near future? With a ridge nosing into the Arctic from that side by midweek, I can see how some particulates could find their way up there.