Snow and Ice in the Northern Hemisphere: Winter 22/23

[Turnedoutniceagain]

Big gains in Siberia this week. 

 

[Aleman]

There's been a small but significant increase in ice at the North of Baffin Bay (west of Greenland). It's mostly ice drifting south rather than new ice but temperatures have dipped to  0 to -5C by day and -5C to -10C at night amongst the islands so will soon see any gaps filling in to add to southern drift.

Ice Products - Product - Product Search - Canadian Ice Service

ICEWEB1.CIS.EC.GC.CA

I also see LOTS of settled snow is projected for Siberia and some more modest snows for Canada that should drop Arctic and sub-Arctic temperatures further.

WWW.METEOCIEL.FR

---

Meteociel propose des cartes de prévisions du modèle americain GFS

 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Aleman

[Aleman]

Houston, we have lift off.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Aleman

[Midlands Ice Age]

5 hours ago, Aleman said:

Houston, we have lift off.

 

All this at the  same time as the DMI Arctic (above 80degrees lat) mean temperature bursts through its constraints and drops to  new lows of 266.57.0K (-6.5C).

Its on  its way down very rapidly now.

 

Snow is as we suggested  falling more widely in Russia and Siberia and the Alaska NSIDC snow map shows it in its glory -

 

 

More good news  - Jaxa sea ice extent has turned positive in the last 2days and unless a big drop occurs today we have the minimum now shown in area, extent and volume (as a PIOMAS volume update also showed increases in the last 2days).

So we can officially declare the start of the 2022 - 2023 refreeze season, with extent at its 10th highest in the last 16 years.. 

 

 

Just below 2021 for now, but with a reasonable chance of catch up in the next week.

The  NH winter season really begins today. 

MIA

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

11 hours ago, Aleman said:

 

I also see LOTS of settled snow is projected for Siberia

 

 

I've been closely watching the modelled snowfall across Siberia / Eurasia, by the end of September / first week of October the current outputs look amazing and quite rare I'd suggest with such a widespread covering at such an early stage 

The site I use for the archived snow charts goes back to 1998 here's the charts for 30th September which is the furthest the current ECM goes and I'll compare the most recent outlooks from GFS and ECM too

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Consistent outputs in this range, latest modelled snowfall 

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Kirkcaldy Weather

[Turnedoutniceagain]

BOREALIS LIVECAM LONGYEARBYEN 360 (kystnor.no)

BOREALIS LIVECAM LONGYEARBYEN 360 (kystnor.no)

It's gone very white in Svalbard

[Midlands Ice Age]

Thanks KW for the analysis above.

More actual data now to support our theory of a rapid start to winter from the snow and ice charts -

Today's cf yesterday's  NSIDC  charts--

                          

Shows the filling in in Eastern Russia. (right to the Pacific), as the colder air wraps around the upcoming storm system

and snowfall in Northern Siberia (not unusual) and also the north of Alaska as the winds back more to the ENE driving in the colder Arctic air.

Jaxa sea extent ice has increased again today and the official winter refreeze has been declared by the Artcic Sea Ice forum, although one or two of the hard-core  members are still expecting the second of the ex Typhoons to wreak havoc over the next few days. We will see.

The below shows the expansion of sea ice in N Chukchi and also the Beaufort and the ESS, where the same people are looking for the losses.

 

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3863.0;attach=351766;image       

Access the link  for animation of the last few days, together with the general view -

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3863.0;attach=351764;image

Latest ice extent charts from the ASIF -

          

Early days yet, but potentially looking 'promising' for  an early start to winter in the Arctic.

The one proviso is that the forming Arctic high does not allow Nonmadol to break into the arctic (and instead that it continues on its way in towards Alaska). 

MIA

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Edited September 21, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[Don]

5 minutes ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Thanks KW for the analysis above.

More actual data now to support our theory of a rapid start to winter from the snow and ice charts -

Today's cf yesterday's  NSIDC  charts--

                          

 

Wow, big increases there!

[Wheezer]

Another look at the heartbeat of the Arctic from day 260 (lowest annual daily extent on average) from 2007 to 2022 . Some comparisons to other years during this period

 

 

[Midlands Ice Age]

Snow extending into true Siberia 

Wednesday             Today       

 

In addition sea ice  extent has increased steadily and is now challenging last year for12th in the last 16 years.....

MIA

[Turnedoutniceagain]

Winter's not hanging about this year !! Tons of snow already 

[Aleman]

I don't know if this is a computer glitch or a reflection of large snowfalls in coastal areas after temperatures have dropped significantly around the Arctic perimeter last week, but the latest map on climatereanalyser shows lots of light sea ice growing out from a multitude of coastal areas, including large amounts of new ice around much of the Canadian Archipelago and, oddly, bits of northern Hudson Bay and Western Greenland coast where it should be warmer. It's much easier to see if you zoom in but I've never seen new ice forming in so many areas at once. Also note new ice around Wrangel and East Laptev islands, all at the same time. It seems a bit too much. There has been a lot of snow, though. We'll see over the next few days if it is genuine or not.

(EDIT - I've no idea why my image, when clicked,  is being linked to images posted previously by others. Only the climatereanalyser image of Sept 25th is relevant.)

Edited September 25, 2022 by Aleman

[Don]

11 hours ago, Turnedoutniceagain said:

Winter's not hanging about this year !! Tons of snow already 

Probably the most snow for the time of year since the 90's or earlier?

[Aleman]

If you step back and forth over the last couple of days, DMI's volume map shows rather less ice than climatereanalyser but also shows ice increasing in a few areas, particularly the N/NW coast of Greenland into the northern Islands of the Canadian Archipelago, with the bonus of a bit of main pack infill. It seems to suggests the oddly large amount of new ice shown yesterday on climatereanalyser in the Canadian Archipelago might not be a glitch - though other sources have yet to fall in line.  More significant snows are expected over this area over the next couple of days with air temperatures running below -5C, sea surface temperatures below 0C and even little bits of leftover ice floes from last year scattered about - so very ripe for sea ice formation.

DMI Modelled ice thickness

OCEAN.DMI.DK

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Aleman

[Aleman]

The main pack has recontacted Russian mainland at 100 degrees East so Laptev might ice up quickly now. This was one of those areas that seemed to have a sudden appearance of light ice after snow but the main pack also drifted that way recently under prevailing winds.

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Aleman

[Jimmyh]

On 21/09/2022 at 06:08, Turnedoutniceagain said:

BOREALIS LIVECAM LONGYEARBYEN 360 (kystnor.no)

BOREALIS LIVECAM LONGYEARBYEN 360 (kystnor.no)

It's gone very white in Svalbard

that is my favourite webcam 

[Turnedoutniceagain]

There's a snowfield the size of Western Europe in Siberia now.

[Midlands Ice Age]

Its 6 days since my last update (after various days away from home) .....    so here goes wuth an end of month report.

Snow now settling more widely in general across the NH, with Russia prominent and Siberia still slowly fillling in.

The latest 2 daya have seen the CAA and the northern territories (just north of Hudson Bay) also receiving their first dumping, as the temperatures reach zero (see below) . Hurricane Ian is now forecast to stay south of this area so it coud well continue the snowy trend that is being established in the region..

The northern Alaskan slopes are also now snow covered and the south is also receiving snowfalls from the lows out in the Pacific.

 It will be intersting to see KW's 30th of Sept history charts updated for this year.

The last 6 days of the relevent snow charts   

Last friday             Yesterday    

 

Sea Ice extent has increased (according to NSIDC) steadily over the last 4 days continuing the trend of a similarity (when compared) to last year.

NSIDC  shows latest daily increases of 57KKm2, 23K km2,  37K Km2 and today 84K KM2 following small consolidation last weekend,

Jaxa shows that currently we are 9th largest in the last 16 years, almost tieing the years 2021, 2016  and 2017 which are less than 50K Km2 above this years values, so could easily be surpassed..

Weather conditions in the general Arctic central area are now being dominated by a large central polar slack low pressure. which is expected to join up with the (still blocking the warm air)   low over the Bering Ocean.

A huge anticyclone appears to be settling into a slightly more westerly position this year in Russia,  It is producing 'causing?' widespread below temps in Russia and is now also pushing the cold westwards into most of non-southern europe. An extensive area of high pressure in Russia right now will produce a gradual drop in temps as the nights grow longer. 

We also seem to be linking our current north Atlantic low to the low over Greenland and north eastern America and Canada.

Hopefully it is not an omen for the winter in the UK.

Charts below from ClimateReanalyser which displays the GFS view of the world's (NH) Climate today , these being the average and minimum temperatures and the Surface Level Pressure (SLP).......

 

            

and in 10 days time -

                 

This shows an average cooling process over the next week in the Arctic regions (that is for the last 20 years).

We have started the refreeze with a normal to good distribution pattern of snow and ice. 

What will October bring?

MIA 

 

Masie above 80degrees temperature chart shows we are now fallling again after a slight warm up last weekend.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age
spelling

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

36 minutes ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

It will be intersting to see KW's 30th of Sept history charts updated for this year.

Yep I'm eagerly awaiting the image for today's snow coverage

Meanwhile I found this 

 

[Midlands Ice Age]

43 minutes ago, Kirkcaldy Weather said:

Yep I'm eagerly awaiting the image for today's snow coverage

Meanwhile I found this 

 

Thanks KW Looking forward to it...

Just realised i hadn't placed the Masie temp chart in my latest post above..

So here we are--

Last 2 days are showing declines again.

MIA

[Dorsetbred]

58 minutes ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Thanks KW Looking forward to it...

Just realised i hadn't placed the Masie temp chart in my latest post above..

So here we are--

Last 2 days are showing declines again.

MIA

If I read that correct its about 6K off the mean.

[Midlands Ice Age]

1 hour ago, Dorsetbred said:

If I read that correct its about 6K off the mean.

Correct  (or thereabouts)...

It is an interesting point you raise.

For the last 20 years we have hardly ever been 'underneath' the average line when in Autumn or Spring, and winter has bounced around, slightly above the line (except when an SST is occuring), and in summer the temps have been below the line.  So what is happening?

Oddly(? ) last year did not follow the prescription, It was  the first time in at least the last 10 years we had been consistently below the line during the spring warm up!. 

 Why might this be?

Above the line is fairly easy to explain in Autumn..

Look at the Climate Reanalyser temp charts I posted above.

 The ' warmer ' areas are all those that have not yet iced over.  Clearly less cooling over water compared to over ice, since no warmer air has got in so far this year. 

So I put it down to the fact that there is less ice in the Arctic compared to the pre- 2000 years, (which are included in the 'anomalies' for temperature).   -    It may be interesting to compare just the last 10 years.

My observations from last year and posted on here,  are that as soon as  the ocean becomes iced over we see (within a couple of days) the temperatures droppping back to the 'normal'. Therefore less ice will mean a higher overall recorded temperature value for the Arctic.

So less ice will automatically lead to warmer temps being observed.

Therefore - it is a form of positive feedback?????

But...   last spring seems to question that theory. 

Otherwise - how do you explain the fact that during the spring they were (for the first time for a long time) consistently below the medium line? There was almost the same amount of ice (within 5 - 10%) of most years this decade and yet the temperatures were lower.

Still a lot to learn regarding ice and temperature relationships over large areas, particularly when the pesky weather keeps interfering!!!......

I have been checking this apparent 'rule' this Sept - but it is too early to draw any conclusions.

During refreeze we typically we see a big drop in temps towards the normal line at the same time as the ice shows a larger gain.

But which comes first? The horse or the cart?

I intend monitoring it during the season, and will report on it occasionally..

MIA

Edited September 30, 2022 by Midlands Ice Age

[Dorsetbred]

34 minutes ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Correct  (or thereabouts)...

It is an interesting point you raise.

For the last 20 years we have hardly ever been 'underneath' the average line when in Autumn or Spring, and winter has bounced around, slightly above the line (except when an SST is occuring), and in summer the temps have been below the line.  So what is happening?

Oddly(? ) last year did not follow the prescription, It was  the first time in at least the last 10 years we had been consistently below the line during the spring warm up!. 

 Why might this be?

Above the line is fairly easy to explain in Autumn..

Look at the Climate Reanalyser temp charts I posted above.

 The ' warmer ' areas are all those that have not yet iced over.  Clearly less cooling over water compared to over ice, since no warmer air has got in so far this year. 

So I put it down to the fact that there is less ice in the Arctic compared to the pre- 2000 years, (which are included in the 'anomalies' for temperature).   -    It may be interesting to compare just the last 10 years.

My observations from last year and posted on here,  are that as soon as  the ocean becomes iced over we see (within a couple of days) the temperatures droppping back to the 'normal'. Therefore less ice will mean a higher overall recorded temperature value for the Arctic.

So less ice will automatically lead to warmer temps being observed.

Therefore - it is a form of positive feedback?????

But...   last spring seems to question that theory. 

Otherwise - how do you explain the fact that during the spring they were (for the first time for a long time) consistently below the medium line? There was almost the same amount of ice (within 5 - 10%) of most years this decade and yet the temperatures were lower.

Still a lot to learn regarding ice and temperature relationships over large areas, particularly when the pesky weather keeps interfering!!!......

I have been checking this apparent 'rule' this Sept - but it is too early to draw any conclusions.

During refreeze we typically we see a big drop in temps towards the normal line at the same time as the ice shows a larger gain.

But which comes first? The horse or the cart?

I intend monitoring it during the season, and will report on it occasionally..

MIA

Great explanation, thanks fore the reply.

[Aleman]

All the lows looks to be having an effect. They churn up warmer water below, releasing moisture and creating snow, raising the air temperature while they are at it but it drops back again after. There's been lots of snow lately. We have a big jump in ice registered here after snows:

 

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Aleman

[Aleman]

If we look at the ice charts, lots of areas of have seen new ice infilling. It's not all new ice, though. I think it's areas of 10%-90% old ice that have seen their overall % jump after heavy snow. There was scattered ice in all these pink "new ice" areas before the heavy snows. I think this ties in with all the light ice amongst the Canadian Archipelago I highlighted a few days back on climatereanalyser that was not being picked up by other sources and still isn't. I have said in previous years that sudden ice formation seems to start with snow that some sources pick up in bits as they happen and others show as a flash freeze a few days later. Temperature maps often seem to be a giveaway of snow settling on sea that some sources are not recording as ice. It might depend on the parameters for ice in their model. Snow drops the surface temperature and sits on the surface as freshwater slush that stops warmer saltier denser water churning up from underneath. When the low passes and high restablishes itself, you then get a sudden freeze - but it's actually a freshwater/brackish slush that's freezing up rather than straight salty sea. It's not the only freezing mechanism, of course. The sea will freeze without snow. Snow often helps it along on some occasions - and there's been a lot dropped in the last couple of weeks with all the lows.

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Aleman