Arctic Sea Ice

MODIS mode is ON

People sometimes say that watching the Arctic sea ice melt is like watching paint dry. Well, let me ask them this: does their freshly painted wall have a NASA satellite monitoring it? Because if they do, I'm coming over with a beer and a bag of salted pistachios.

Yes, we're finally there. The MODIS white ball has been growing smaller and smaller and will be gone in a couple of days. And this means the gazing for things out of the ordinary is resuming. Of course, speculation has already started here and there, as the fringes of the ice pack have been visible for quite a while. I had a look at the situation in the Bering Strait, and Patrick Lockerby's first guest post here focused on the ice in Baffin Bay. Over on Patrick's blog, in the comment section of Arctic Ice March 2001 Update #2, we already had a bit of a look at Nares Strait, which is one of the most interesting things to keep an eye on in the Arctic, especially around this time.

So to celebrate the return of the full Arctic Mosaic I'll give a brief overview of the current situation in the Nares Strait:

Arctic Sea Ice Information and Resources - "pay-walls"

In view of some austerity programs in government(s) and "tax funded" institutions could there be a reduction or removal of content - information made freely available to communities such as us.

It's not likely the information will disappear but much of it could come under FOIA (Freedom of Information Acts) requiring a "Research and Reproduction Fee" (PayWall). Servers and Bandwidth Cost.

If you become aware of "OnLine Surveys" which in some manner could be regarded as an attempt to describe the usefulness of "free data" go tell them something and post a link in this topic.

 

I'll start with one I posted in another topic/thread, "First Forecasts" = PIPS at

http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/feedback.php?project=PIPS2 

First forecasts

Forecasts, predictions, projections, there are some nuanced distinctions between all these terms. But 'forecasts' alliterates best with 'first', and I'm a sucker for catchy, alliterative titles. Besides, the forecasts for this year's Arctic sea ice extent minimum that I'm going to write about, are meant as stimulating statistical exercises. No more, no less. Let that be a careful caveat.

I'm starting off with a blog post that was written a month ago by Kelly O'Day of the Chartsgraphs blog:

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Forecast for September 2011

In this post, I use a quadratic regression model to forecast the September, 2011 Arctic Sea Ice Extent. The model was developed with 1980 – 2010 data. Links to the R script, source data and how-to article on polynomial regression are provided.

Kelly's forecast - based on a quadratic regression model of September sea ice extent for the 1980 – 2010 period - is that September 2011 SIE will decline 0.36 below 2010 levels, to 4.54 million km^2, with a confidence band of +- 0.59. The forecast was inspired by Tamino‘s post on Arctic Sea Ice decline called 'Death Spiral', that some of us might recall. Tamino's prediction for the 2010 minimum SIE made in July came in very close to the actual number (edit: Tamino made a prediction for the 2011 SIE minimum back in October 2010, see update at the end of this blog post):

Tip Jar - Chip In and Test Topic/Thread

With Neven demonstrating a "propensity for modesty" in regards to soliciting funds for a paid version of TypePad, I would like to ask ALL viewers and participants to contribute.

I do not see a suggested minimum amount, if you can not afford One (1) Month of Annual Cost please consider $5.00 (USD).  Voluntary contribute - pay to support - BLOGs and Web Sites are notorious for disappearing.  Without communtiy support I don't find it reasonable to ask or suggest Neven to pay all out of his pocket for the the period of time 2016 +/- 3 years.

If it should happen he receives more than Annual Cost the first year, I vote he "roll-it-over" to pay for subsequent years and then if an excess is available he spends it on comforting (entertaining) someone he may have not given full and proper attention to. I've received at least the price of a theater ticket or six-pack of enjoyment here, how about you?

These comments are unsolicited and in no way suggested by Neven.

Neven, if this Topic - Thread violates your sensibilities, please delete without any feelings of remorse. 
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In Addition - BTW

In order to occasionally "bump" this topic - thread it seems a good place for me to experiment for embedding FLASH Player HTML for "blink-comparsion-animations" to determine best resolution (dimensions) for display.  You've been warned!

Regards to All

Ice In Baffin Bay

It looks like the ice floes in Baffin Bay didn't compact too well during the winter.  Instead of slabbing and compacting, the floes appear to have merely become congealed together with winter ice.  That ice is now first year ice.  'First year' doesn't imply year-old: the ice which surrounds older floes in Baffin Bay is just over 6 months old.

As ice forms over sea water it traps pockets of water.  Over a period of time the ice in effect squeezes the salt water out through the bottom.  This makes older ice less salty.  Salty ice is a matrix of ice crystals surrounding pockets of water.  That structure makes the ice somewhat flexible and weak: the younger the weaker.  Salty ice also melts faster than fresh-water ice.

Recent images from the Arctic mosaic show cracks in the newer ice running outside of the older ice.  This appears to me to be yet one more positive feedback in the ice-melting saga.  Previously the ice in Baffin Bay has built up in thickness by slabbing.  It takes much more energy to crack thick multi-year ice than to crack the first year ice that surrounds last year's floes.

The images below, all taken from Arctic mosaics, compare ice on March 22 2009, 2010 and 2011.

March 22 2009

 

March 22 2010

 

March 22 2011

 

March 22 2011 in more detail

 

My expectation is that this ice will break up, disperse and melt rapidly as the melt season gets fully under way.  Baffin Bay ice usually presents a great obstruction to the export of ice from Nares Strait and the Canadian Archipelago.  I suggest that it will not continue to do so for long.

 

Images courtesy http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

SIE 2011 update 2: maximum extent (and area)

During the melting season I'm regularly writing updates on the current sea ice extent (SIE) as reported by IJIS (a joint effort of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and compare it to the sea ice extents in the period 2005-2010. NSIDC has a good explanation of what sea ice extent is in their FAQ. I also look at other things like sea ice area, concentration, volume, temperature and weather forecasts, anything that can be of particular interest. Check out the Arctic sea ice graph webpage for daily updated graphs, maps and live webcam images.

March 22nd 2011

Amazing how time flies. There were a full 10 days between this update and the first of the season. Of course, IJIS didn't report any extent numbers for quite a few days, probably having to do with the tragic catastrophe that has hit Japan. But their graph is up and running again.

I was speculating in the previous update on the question whether the sea ice extent maximum had been reached yet, but the trend decided to do a double peak (if I can call it that). It was more prudent to wait a bit longer to see where that second peak would end, which turned out to be approximately 30 thousand square kilometres below the previous peak of 13,887,188 km2, recorded on March 8th. Since then the trend has made quite a steep dive and extent is now over 200 thousand square km below the peak. So to hell with prudence: I'm calling maximum.

Just to put things in perspective, here are previous maximum SIEs in the 2005-2011 period:

• 2005: 14,098,906 (March 6th)
• 2006: 13,782,344 (March 11th)
• 2007: 13,945,625 (March 10th)
• 2008: 14,516,875 (March 11th)
• 2009: 14,412,813 (March 5th)
• 2010: 14,407,344 (March 31st)
• 2011: 13,887,188 (March 8th)

So 2011 just had the second lowest SIE maximum in the IJIS record. Obviously ice hasn't been growing very fast and extensively in the Bering Sea, and there's a huge polynya off the coast of Novaya Zemlya. There might be some late and fragile ice growth like last year, or ice compaction will slow down melt later on in the melting season, but as it currently stands 2011 has joined 2005, 2006 and 2007 in the lower part of the trend 'ensemble', whereas 2008, 2009 and 2010 are in a zone half a million square km above that on the IJIS sea ice extent graph:

 

The current difference between 2011 and the other years is as follows:

New design

I've fiddled long enough now with this new and simple design, so here we go:

• There's a column to the right and left now.
• There's a link to the Arctic Daily Graphs page in the navigation bar on top.
• You can mail me through a link in the navigation bar (I check this account every other day).
• There was supposed to be a poll in the right column, but it's gone now (darn it).
• Instead of 3 the last 10 comments are shown in the left column.
• The blog now has a few extra authors.
• Colours are based on colours in the new banner I made (bloom, ice).

Stuff in the pipeline:

• An Arctic news feed that people can submit articles to (I still have no clue how).
• A page with research papers, a bit like the AGW Observer blog, but focussed on the Arctic only.
• Perhaps putting some of the major daily graphs/weather forecasts in the columns.
• I'm toying around with embedded Picasa slideshows to replace the loopy GIF animations.
• A tip jar for covering costs. (check!)
• A blog roll with Arctic blogs.

Alas, TypePad doesn't allow more commenting functionality (high on my list).

Suggestions and/or help are welcome. I can do the basic stuff, but not much more. Hope you like.

Animation Bering Sea

Now that the MODIS white ball in the middle of the Arctic Mosaic is receding more and more, it's high time we start looking at what's going on down below (some of you who weren't hibernating already did of course). As the skies above the Bering Sea and its Strait have been exceptionally clear lately I decided it was a good exercise to get my animation skills in shape for the coming melting season.

Here's what's been happening in the past ten days, from March 5th (day 64) to 14th (day 73):

 

There's obviously a lot of mobility with ice being transported into the Arctic Basin (!). Lots of big leads along the coasts as well. What a difference compared to last year:

SIE 2011 update 1: a new beginning

During the melting season I'm regularly writing updates on the current sea ice extent (SIE) as reported by IJIS (a joint effort of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and compare it to the sea ice extents in the period 2005-2010. NSIDC has a good explanation of what sea ice extent is in their FAQ. I also look at other things like sea ice area, concentration, volume, temperature and weather forecasts, anything that can be of particular interest. Check out the Arctic sea ice graph webpage for daily updated graphs, maps and live webcam images.

March 12th 2011

First off, I'd like to mention that I have updated the Arctic sea ice graph webpage (also thanks to the Wetterzentrale forum), which is now totalling over 30 daily updated graphs and maps of Arctic sea ice extent, area, concentration and thickness, air and sea surface temperatures, sea level pressure, and more. Let me know if you want to see even more stuff in there.

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Arctic sea ice has more or less reached its maximum cover. Sure, last year the growing season was prolonged by another three weeks after this date, but those three weeks amounted to an increase of just 70-75 thousand square kilometers of thin ice. So, I think it's safe to say the growing season is over, the melting season is starting, the Arctic Sea Ice blog has finished hibernating and it's time for a first SIE (sea ice extent) update.

Extent (and area) seemed to level off about two weeks ago and reach a very early peak of 13,666,875 km². But as nothing in the Arctic is a dead certainty, things flipped and the extent as reported by IJIS has increased some more to 13,802,344 km² as of March 10th, with the latest peak at 13,887,188 km² two days earlier. Is the race on? I think we'll know in a week or so. Most years in the 2005-2010 interval peaked around this time.

The current difference between 2011 and the other years is as follows:

• 2005: -267K(-13,332)
• 2006: +61K (-11,704)
• 2007: -143 (-9,894)
• 2008: -714K (-10,761)
• 2009: -356K (-10,746)
• 2010:  -528K (+13,402)

Between brackets is the average daily extent rate for the month of March. 2011's average daily extent rate for March is currently 14,078 square km per day. This is bound to come down if the peak has been reached (last year shows an increase in average daily extent because the peak was on the last day of the month). 2011 is in second place, right behind 2006.

Here's the IJIS sea ice extent graph:

The Cryosphere Today sea ice area anomaly graph has consistently hovered around the minus 1 million km² mark. It should have been going up by now, but it isn't. If it doesn't - depending on how fast the melting season gets underway - this should have a marked visual effect on Cryosphere Today's tale of the tape graph.

There's an Ice Floe in my Garden

This, ladies and gentlemen, is an ice floe of 1 square meter. Notice how it has wreaked havoc with those wooden boards on which a fragile flowerpot rests:

I think it's at least 20 centimeters thick (salinity should be zero):

How much more sea ice does the Arctic currently hold? The mind boggles.