Arctic Ice Discussion 2013-14: the refreeze...

[Methuselah]

Here you go folks, I thought it might be just about time. I will, however, leave the 'melt' thread open, for a while at least, just in case of any surprise melting... 

[stewfox]

Here you go folks, I thought it might be just about time. I will, however, leave the 'melt' thread open, for a while at least, just in case of any surprise melting... 

 

IJIS up another 64k today or 178k above the min

 

Does look like the min of 4809288 12th Sept (my forecast early June of 4.8m for season end  seems to have been a good call  )

 

NSIDC sums up the current year nicely

 

In contrast, this year’s Arctic summer minimum ice extent is approximately 30% below levels seen in the early 1980s, and the 2012 record low extent was around 60% below levels seen in the same period

 

.â€http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2013/09/4292/

 

 

We need volume and extent going forward

 

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/09/piomas-september-2013.html

 

What we don't want is another 'mild' winter in the high artic

 

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

Edited September 22, 2013 by stewfox

[BornFromTheVoid]

IJIS up another 64k today or 178k above the min

 

Does look like the min of 4809288 12th Sept (my forecast early June of 4.8m for season end  seems to have been a good call  )

 

We need volume and extent

 

 

 

 

NSIDC sums up the current year nicely

 

In contrast, this year’s Arctic summer minimum ice extent is approximately 30% below levels seen in the early 1980s, and the 2012 record low extent was around 60% below levels seen in the same period

 

.â€http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2013/09/4292/

 

What we don't want is another 'mild' winter in the high artic

 

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

 

Yep, good call Stew.

 

I think we will probably see another mild Autumn regardless, as the ocean heat is released.

Despite uppers being close to average, we're seeing the surface anomalies rise considerably.

 

 

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/glbcir.shtml

[thetonynator]

IJIS up another 64k today or 178k above the min

 

Does look like the min of 4809288 12th Sept (my forecast early June of 4.8m for season end  seems to have been a good call  )

 

NSIDC sums up the current year nicely

 

In contrast, this year’s Arctic summer minimum ice extent is approximately 30% below levels seen in the early 1980s, and the 2012 record low extent was around 60% below levels seen in the same period

 

.â€http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2013/09/4292/

 

 

We need volume and extent going forward

 

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/09/piomas-september-2013.html

 

What we don't want is another 'mild' winter in the high artic

 

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

Just to point out, any forecasts were made based on the old version of IJIS, which finished at 5 million, rather than the new version which s 200k lower.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Just to point out, any forecasts were made based on the old version of IJIS, which finished at 5 million, rather than the new version which s 200k lower.

 

Yep, showing that Stew is clearly an alarmist

[BornFromTheVoid]

IJIS extent back above 5 million km2, something 2012 didn't achieve for another 22 days...

[keithlucky]

Arctic ice extent has gained 86,000 sq km thats the 2nd major gain in 2days

[BornFromTheVoid]

Arctic ice extent has gained 86,000 sq km thats the 2nd major gain in 2days

 

 

I know I ask you a lot Keith, but can you please provide a link to the source when you copy things from other sites.

 

What they actually said was

 

Arctic Sea Ice Extent gained 86,000 sq km. on day 264. Thats the 2nd major gain on 3 days. The minimum was back on day 252 and it is very unlikely that will change.

 

http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/arctic-sea-ice-extent-gained-86000-sq-km-sept-22/

[stewfox]

IJIS up by 57k today

 

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

 

 

Pleasing to see the DMI graph shows a sharp drop in temp in the last few days to head towards the norm for this time of year..

 

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

[oldsnowywizard]

quite a wide spread area of cold 850 temps compared to most years over the past decade...i have added the last two to avoid too big a post... also worth noting the snow cover comparisons... what implications this will have oversea ice i dont know but certainly positives here so far..

Edited October 1, 2013 by oldsnowywizard

[knocker]

This summer, Arctic sea ice loss was held in check by relatively cool and stormy conditions. As a result, 2013 saw substantially more ice at summer’s end, compared to last year’s record low extent. The Greenland Ice Sheet also showed less extensive surface melt than in 2012. Meanwhile, in the Antarctic, sea ice reached the highest extent recorded in the satellite record.

 

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Edited October 4, 2013 by knocker

[stewfox]

140k rise yesterday

 

 

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

 

My punt to cross the 1990s average min October 13th

 

My punt to cross 1980s average min  October 17th

 

 

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Edited October 5, 2013 by stewfox

[BornFromTheVoid]

Just looking at the IJIS extent, the average daily increase over the last 10 days (72,946km2/day) is the 4th highest since 2002, behind 2002 (109,556km2/day), 2010 (80,565km2/day) and 2008 (73,377km2/day), but higher than the 80s, 90s and 00s average.

 

With the NSIDC October data, it's interesting to see the clear increase in October gains over the satellite record, which ties in with the minimum dropping faster than the maximum.

 

 

[Southern Storm]

146k rise for the 7th, hope we continue with these healthy rises, 

 

also I have noticed that this thread has gone very quiet at the moment, its almost as if the refreeze isn't as important as melt season!

why this would be I have no idea, but I hope we can have a decent discussion on why more ice has been retained this year compared to last

[BornFromTheVoid]

146k rise for the 7th, hope we continue with these healthy rises, 

 

also I have noticed that this thread has gone very quiet at the moment, its almost as if the refreeze isn't as important as melt season!

why this would be I have no idea, but I hope we can have a decent discussion on why more ice has been retained this year compared to last

 

I usually post the NSIDC stuff here, but the data has been inaccessible since the US gov shutdown. For doing any decent analysis of the melt season, I'd ideally use the ncep reanalysis data, but alas, that's also currently inaccessible!

Hopefully this refreeze season will prove interesting, and the more data will be available soon.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Something to keep me occupied while the NSIDC is out of reach!

Here's the IJIS October daily extent change from 2002 to 2013, so it's a graph of the (mostly) daily increases in extent, rather than the absolute extent values.

2013 is the thick black line, the daily maximum increase is the blue dash line, the average is green, the lowest increase (occasional decrease) is the orange dashed line, 2007 in the light grey thin line and 2012 in the dark grey thin line

 

[East_England_Stormchaser91]

146k rise for the 7th, hope we continue with these healthy rises, 

 

also I have noticed that this thread has gone very quiet at the moment, its almost as if the refreeze isn't as important as melt season!

why this would be I have no idea, but I hope we can have a decent discussion on why more ice has been retained this year compared to last

Definitely due to a +AO and +NAO. This has resulted in the cold being 'locked' in at the pole rather than heights and a -AO causing the cold to be pushed further South and more sunlight and warmth at the poles, this was not the case this summer. Infact, the complete opposite!

[stewfox]

146k rise for the 7th, hope we continue with these healthy rises, 

 

also I have noticed that this thread has gone very quiet at the moment, its almost as if the refreeze isn't as important as melt season!

why this would be I have no idea, but I hope we can have a decent discussion on why more ice has been retained this year compared to last

 

A fair few posts go now into NH Snow and ice thread now.

 

Re IJIS 251k short of the 2000s averages

 

2m above last yr but 2m below 1980s averages

 

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

 

DMI looking good at present, bit below the long term average

 

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

 

Would expect some large increases in the coming weeks.

 

If we could edge up above the 2000s averages for the winter by year end , which is realistic and maybe hit a 1990s average for extent by March and seem some increase in volume.

 

We will start 2014 melt season with more multi year ice (cf 2013) and I would hope more volume and if we had another favourable summer , 'death sprial' might be delayed by another year.

Edited October 12, 2013 by stewfox

[keithlucky]

Yes this graph shows a 52 per cent increase in growth compared to this time last year green shows ice which is present this red shows the opposite  

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e

Edited October 12, 2013 by keithlucky

[Gray-Wolf]

This year has turned into a glorious extension of the late spring " Look we've reached average" fest! 

 

Are some folk are really setting themselves up for a fall come the next series of losses across the basin or can we comfortably say that the trend of losses we've witnessed over the past 60 yrs has reversed?

[thetonynator]

This year has turned into a glorious extension of the late spring " Look we've reached average" fest!  Are some folk are really setting themselves up for a fall come the next series of losses across the basin or can we comfortably say that the trend of losses we've witnessed over the past 60 yrs has reversed?

Strong words from a man who repeatedly said we would never go above the 2007 minimum again.

[Devonian]

Strong words from a man who repeatedly said we would never go above the 2007 minimum again.

 

I don't recall GW saying such. Can you please post an example where he did?

[4wd]

I don't recall GW saying such. Can you please post an example where he did?

Here you go: 

In reality Fram has , over the past 50yrs, probably been the thing to break the Arctics back? I know that we have not replaced the ice thickness at the rate needed to keep the Arctic healthy but once thickness allowed better ice mobility then the size of the outlet at Fram allowed for vast areas to ship out.

 

Folk talk about the ice bridges from Greenland to Iceland as though it was some 'cold indicator' but was it merely an indicator of the speed and size of losses from Fram that allowed a very full East coast of Greenland (and the micro climate impacts so much ice would have locally?) that fueled the final installments of such events? When you look over winter you'll see the ice tongue extend toward the channel between Iceland and Greenland but it has been fed with losses from Fram and the reduced melt rates winter brings with it?

 

After revisiting the 'Global Dimming' phenomena I have had to embrace an even bleaker understanding of where we are headed and feel it even less likely that I will now ever see ice at min higher than the 2007 min.

 

With that side of things now over I suppose I should turn my attentions to the viability of the winter pack over the coming decades and how we will see the summer impacts increasingly manifest there. At least most of our posters will remember what an 'average' winter pack looks like? I feel that most of us have no notion of just how much of the summer pack we have lost having no notion of the scale of the ice that used to be present over summer. With folk happily posting thickness data for the winter pack there will be no missing the changes as thickness plummets (along with Area) once sea areas are no longer able to produce the ice anymore (as we see in Kara/Barrentsz and Baffin now).

 

Happy days eh?

[Gray-Wolf]

Can you see the beauty of my outlook now four? I've said many times before that I'll be more than happy to find myself wrong and this whole summer melt season has given me reason to happily be proven wrong. Every summer that slows our current direction is one in the bank for me and an extra for my kids!

 

I suppose it's how we chose to lay out our stall? Do we want a life full of pleasant surprises or one fraught with explaining our errors?

 

When Natural forces push back and bring us reprieve do we embrace it for what it is or do we try and make it into something that will have us feeling foolish/gutted when Nature releases it's negative impacts and allows our current Energy imbalance to again rule the roost?

 

We have seen 1 summer of high melt forcings ( 07') a run of 'average' years and one cool summer. Since 07' this has lead to 3 mins of 07' levels or below ( of which 07' was one) so how many of the next 5 years will be 'cool', how many 'average' and how many 'warm' ?

 

This 1 season of 'cool' leaves us 6th lowest in ice levels and the last 'average' dropped us 18% below the last 'warm' season's low ( 07').

 

Across the whole of the climate debate I see the same occurring. As far as I know there is still an energy imbalance and nature still swings between positive and negative forcings. How much longer can Nature remain in a conflagration that allows for a slowing in the rate of atmospheric temp warming?

[stewfox]

This year has turned into a glorious extension of the late spring " Look we've reached average" fest! 

 

Are some folk are really setting themselves up for a fall come the next series of losses across the basin or can we comfortably say that the trend of losses we've witnessed over the past 60 yrs has reversed?

 

1979 is 34 yrs,  if we keep to the official records.

 

Have we witnessed a reversal no idea ? Just a slam on the breaks