646 replies to this topic

[stewfox]

VillagePlank, on 13 April 2011 - 10:05 , said:

Please stick me on a 6.2 million for the minimum this year.

(Low solar activity continues, and energy already in the system leaking out, with the most rapid 'leaking' already over and done with (last year, and the year before))

Too late now to go at 6.5m

But someone should tell that little red fella he should start going south


http://www.ijis.iarc...ce_Extent_L.png

Lost 20,000 kms last 10 days cf 400,000 in 2003 for the same period

Edited by stewfox, 14 April 2011 - 20:09 .

[The PIT]

Artic ice now falling off and now joint fourth highest or lowest (since 2002) depending how you want too review the present state. http://www.ijis.iarc...e_Extent_L.png. Dunno how low it's going to go none of us do however I doubt it will be zero as some wish deep down. Hopefully they'll be a leisurely fall without any large plunges.

Barents sea and the sea of Okhotsk seem to be the main melting areas while Baffin and Bearing seem to have forgotten it's spring.

Edited by The PIT, 21 April 2011 - 16:39 .

[stewfox]

The PIT, on 21 April 2011 - 16:35 , said:

Artic ice now falling off and now joint fourth highest or lowest (since 2002) depending how you want too review the present state. http://www.ijis.iarc...e_Extent_L.png. Dunno how low it's going to go none of us do however I doubt it will be zero as some wish deep down. Hopefully they'll be a leisurely fall without any large plunges.

Barents sea and the sea of Okhotsk seem to be the main melting areas while Baffin and Bearing seem to have forgotten it's spring.

To be honest I don't expect any significant developments until end of June early July when we start to see serious spreads on IJIS figures and the like..

Older thicker ice has increased some what from last year.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Will be interesting to see if that melts out.

[Gray-Wolf]

As we know from previous years all ice below 2.5m thickness is at risk from in-situ melt out regardless of it's age. at present over 90% of the pack is 2.5m or less so I would expect widespread and rapid melt to occur from mid May onward. The dreaded Arctic dipole also seems to be putting in an appearance at present and, should this pattern persist, we could start to see an 07' type melt without the thick paleocrystic ice that endured that years melt being present in the basin this year?

We will know by late July just how low we can expect the final 'extent' figure to fall to and I am concerned that this will be a sub 4 million figure and will leave little or no 'older ice' come sept.

The natural 'variation' that the summer weather brings with it will leave us with some years doing better than other in holding onto ice but I do not see any ice lasting 4 years or more due to the new , more dynamic, pack with ice flowing out of the basin all year and the Beaufort gyre/trans polar drift effectively capturing and this shipping out the oldest ice (where once this would become trapped and formed the massive banks of aleocryistic we knew in our childhoods).

[The PIT]

Ah only ten percent of ice left at the end of the season then.

[pottyprof]

What happened to the new ice volume data that you were talking about GW? I would have thought they would have some data available by now... Any idea?

[Gray-Wolf]

The PIT, on 25 April 2011 - 14:54 , said:

Ah only ten percent of ice left at the end of the season then.

My understanding is that we could face such Pit? If we take out the Paleocrystic that weathered the 07' storm then this is the amount we would have been left with back then .This year all of that ice is gone and we have less than 5% of such ice scattered around the basin (in bays and inlets).

The other factor is the opening of the Canadian Archipelago for ice export into Baffin (and melt) so we have virtually no durable ice (if we are to face a di-pole like 07') and more scope for that setup to export ice from the basin.

As I have said, we need wait for mid-July to see where we are (extent wise), ATM the setup has allowed for the retention of the ice around the Canadian/Greenland sectors but the same setup ,with a strengthening sun, will provide the opposite (with clear skies and a 24hr sun beating down).

I tend to think you will not accept the same as I do regarding the state of the Arctic ,Pit, without seeing the corpse first? Maybe this year will provide you such an opportunity?

pottyprof, on 25 April 2011 - 15:02 , said:

What happened to the new ice volume data that you were talking about GW? I would have thought they would have some data available by now... Any idea?

You can apply for access to the data P.P.but the volume of data tends to mangle my P.C.

That said I'm sure the likes of JAXA and NSIDC will be on with providing us with a more 'user friendly' version of the data stream?

If your PC is up to it (and your will to supply them with your details /credentials) you should check out the ESA site for access and software?

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 26 April 2011 - 15:26 .

[songster]

http://ocean.dmi.dk/...270103.ASAR.jpg

Ice bridge still looks unchanged.

[Gray-Wolf]

songster, on 27 April 2011 - 09:15 , said:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/...270103.ASAR.jpg

Ice bridge still looks unchanged.

Very much so songster! I , for one ,did not feel it had such integrity after the initial collapse but then it has stayed a little nippy up there over the past few Weeks? With the surge towards spring now ongoing it will be only a matter of time before either wind or melt undoes it's icy grip. If you look at the ice to the rear


http://ocean.dmi.dk/...270103.ASAR.jpg

you can see how weak it is (in comparison) being an agglomeration of old ice bits and bats in a matrix of skimpy FY ice.

EDIT: My bet is still on that eastern contact with Greenland giving way and the 'bridge' rotating and flowing into Baffin (whilst disintegrating) before it melts out. Remember we saw 200ft thick sections of Petermann pass through there last Sept so there is no issue with it's depth etc.

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 27 April 2011 - 22:35 .

[oldsnowywizard]

I though it wouldn't matter if it was cold Gw it would have continued to fall apart?

Anywho the cold continues over hudson (a late freeze and a late melt) . The main cold area will move over the basin so in the right place for the last weeks of winter up there. A greeny high should blow milder air up into Baffin however this should also help compact the ice a little and stop the dreaded flow out of Baffin as GW fears... (at least for a little while). A slack northerly the other side of Greenland shouldn't have too much impact on ice flow. All in all not a bad ending up there and it will be interesting to see how things pan out.

[4wd]

Gray-Wolf, on 12 April 2011 - 23:19 , said:

http://rapidfire.sci...1102.terra.250m

I feel the next two days will see the end of yon ice bridge?

songster, on 27 April 2011 - 09:15 , said:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/...270103.ASAR.jpg

Ice bridge still looks unchanged.

Gray-Wolf, on 27 April 2011 - 22:32 , said:

Very much so songster! I , for one ,did not feel it had such integrity after the initial collapse but ....

Tout change, mais tout reste le même

[Gray-Wolf]

Still awaiting MODIS confirmation , 4wd, but we seem to have lost some of the bridge today?

The C.T. ice extent plots suggest a lot of 'stretching of the central pack now the B. Gyre has sprung into life but it will be quite a while before those 80% sections drop below 15% but it does not look very pretty for sure. If you spend a couple of days worth of images (250m scale) you can see how ragged the pack looks already and the more fragmented the more surface area is exposed to the ocean and the faster it ablates. Hold onto your hat's guys! late may/early June look precipitous (loss wise on the graphs). I suggested early on that we would see a new record for rate of ice loss this year and it appears that I was not wrong!

It appears that the cold over Canada/Greenland is now letting up and even the N.Pole cam jumped from -20c internal temps to +2c temps yesterday so even the central areas seem to be exchanging winter for spring? If the Di-pole persists then that early summer sun will play havoc with such a skimpy pack for sure. Not long to wait though as the days rapidly lengthen to their max over the next 8 weeks.

[songster]

Um, no? No change on ASAR or MODIS that I can see. What makes you think there might be?

[Gray-Wolf]

http://rapidfire.sci...141500.250m.jpg

Sorry songster , you are correct. As I said I needed a few more images to look at before confirming. The above image appeared (to me) to deeper scalloping on the Canadian /Baffin side but the latest ASAR sees no change from before the 21st. Can't be long though?

The JAXA figures since the 25th have stepped up a pace with todays prelim showing a 65k loss. How long before we start hitting a regular 100k+ (my guess would be mid April with record loss rates by mid June?).

Thanks again for the 'quality control' songster!

[Geordiesnow]

As a complete novice of the Arctic Sea ice, I'm interested to know what a "di-pole" is, going by the posts, its a weather set up that occurs in the Arctic which has a negative affect on the sea ice but how do I know when the charts are showing it?

[Gray-Wolf]

Arctic dipole anomaly
The Arctic dipole anomaly is a pressure pattern characterized by high pressure on the arctic regions of North America, and a low pressure on the Eurasia region.^[1] This pattern sometimes replaces the Arctic oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.^[2] It was observed for the first time in the first decade of 2000s and is perhaps linked to recent climate change.^[3] The Arctic dipole lets more southern winds into the Arctic ocean resulting in more ice melting.^[1] The summer 2007 event played a big role in the record low sea ice extent which was recorded in September.^[2] The Arctic dipole has also been linked to drier winters in Northern Europe and colder winters in East Asia and North America.<sup>[2]

from;
http://en.wikipedia...._dipole_anomaly</sup>

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 29 April 2011 - 19:17 .

[Gray-Wolf]

Another 67.5k on the first sweep of the JAXA extent and you can see that this puts quite a steep line on the graph;

http://www.ijis.iarc...aice_extent.htm

which is now set to continue as we enter the early phase of melt season proper. This is only the peripheral ice melting out though.

[Geordiesnow]

Thanks for that GW, looking at the charts, we are seeing part of that set up showing but too me, it looks like the majority of the Arctic is under low pressure condition thus the colder uppers gain strength again which can only be a good thing for the Sea Ice across the body of the Arctic?

Regarding the JAXA graphs, does the 1st update has the lowest figure of the day and then when the 2nd update arrives, the figure actually goes up, I know this is normally the case but i'm sure yesterday's update had the opposite happening so I was wondering if its the opposite during the summer melt season where the 2nd update figure goes down even more than the first update?

[songster]

Lately JAXA has been having several updates a day, and quite wide swings between updates. I believe they had to move their data analysis to another site after the tsunami, so it's possible the processing algorithms are less streamlined than last year.

Melt this year is progressing only slightly slower than last year despite the fact that Canada has been cold and Hudson Bay / Strait hasn't started melting yet. Once these areas do start melting (and they will, since they're fully seasonal), the overall figures will be in for a world of hurt.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm also worried that ,as with 97' in the world of global temps, 07' will be viewed as some kind of 'benchmark' for ice loss and we will continue to hear tales of 'recovery' every year that does not match/excede that exceptional low?

07' was a shocker but since then we have lost our paleocryistic 'backbone' to the Arctic pack (the only bit that survived the 07' melt) so we face the prospect of only having bay ice and bits to the north of Greenland remaining if we ever run into the 07' synoptic again.

After 07' we were told that those synoptics arrive every 7 to 20 years and so , to me ,we are playing a waiting game until our first 'fully seasonal' Arctic pack. With ice thickness so thin and 'average summer' synoptics leading to us us near matching the 07' low how close are we to the 1 million min even without an 07' 'Perfect Storm'?

For the past 4 winters we have had tales of 'recovery' and I have been chastened for my bleak outlooks only to see 'recovery' fade into the bleak forecasts I made.

This year I have the bleakest forecast yet (with my 3.5 million min) yet privately fear that it will be worse than that (I am moderating my tome as the situation worsens?).

I do wonder though at who will be telling me that "You've got what you wanted now!" when the pack does arrive at sub 1 million at summers end ( some folk can't resist shooting the messenger) yet every person (I know) who shares a similar understanding to my own would dearly wish for thier dire outlook to be wrong and for a real 'recovery' to be just around the corner!