Arctic Sea Ice

ASI 2013 update 2: shaken and stirred

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) and IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2012 period (NSIDC has a good explanation of sea ice extent and area in their FAQ). I also look at other things like regional sea ice area, compactness, temperature and weather forecasts, anything of particular interest.

Check out the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website (ASIG)
for daily updated graphs, maps, live webcam images and
the Arctic Sea Ice Forum (ASIF) for detailed discussions.

June 8th 2013

What the heck, I'm giving it another try (practice makes perfect):

The slow start I reported on in the previous update has continued, but as always in the Arctic there is more than meets the sensor. The slowness shows itself mostly in the area and extent numbers (changing as we speak), and the main culprit is that cyclone that refuses to go away.

I initially said this would be a relatively small cyclone, and even called it the Small Arctic Cyclone of 2013 in one of the two posts I devoted to it since the last ASI update, as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 (GAC-2012). But you know what? It ain't that small, and what's even more interesting: it just won't go away.

For over two weeks now it's been keeping things colder and cloudier over the central Arctic, but at the same time it's been shaking and stirring the ice, wherever it passes. Not to the point that it makes the ice disappear - this isn't August, most of the ice is still thick enough -, but it is showing how mobile the ice is, ripping holes in the ice pack that close up again once the storm has passed. It reminds me a bit of the 2010 melting season, when large regions with holes showed up in the middle of the ice pack.

So this cyclone is the big news of the melting season so far. Here's the rest.

Sea ice area (SIA)

Cryosphere Today sea ice area data had the trend line of 2013 way above all the others at the end of the month, but it seems that the limit has been reached. After a century break a couple of days ago a very big drop of almost 250K was reported today for June the 6th.

Here's the graph based on the latest data:

New map on the block

Further down is a short update on the effects the SAC-2013 (Small Arctic Cyclone of 2013) has had so far, but first I want to draw some attention to a great new product that has recently come online, a sea ice concentration map with the highest resolution so far. When I started this blog the NSIDC used a 25 km grid, meaning that every pixel on their SIC map represented an area of 25 x 25 km, or 625 square kilometres, on the ground. IJIS had a 12.5 km grid and the University of Bremen even had and still has a 6.25 km grid.

Last year the GCOM-W1 (Shizuku) satellite was launched, with the AMSR2 microwave sensor aboard, and soon after that the Japanese space agency JAXA started to put out data. Alexander Beitsch from the University of Hamburg's KlimaCampus optimized the processing of this data, improving grid resolution to a stunning 3.125 km. This was part of his PhD in the framework of the IRO2 project that is being funded through the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). Sehr gut und danke schön!

There was just one problem with the sea ice concentration map that was produced, and that was that it was huge. 17 MB for just one image makes it difficult for us amateurs to play around with it. Luckily, the Arctic Sea Ice blog has some very smart bunnies on its member list, and it was Wipneus (well-known for his work on PIOMAS data) who managed to reduce the file size by ten times. For the time being he is putting those images on a separate Google Site. Thank you, Wipneus!

ASI 2013 update 1: a slow start

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) and IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2012 period (NSIDC has a good explanation of sea ice extent and area in their FAQ). I also look at other things like regional sea ice area, compactness, temperature and weather forecasts, anything of particular interest.

Check out the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website (ASIG)
for daily updated graphs, maps, live webcam images and
the Arctic Sea Ice Forum (ASIF) for detailed discussions.

May 26th 2013

This is a slow start in two ways.

I wanted to begin posting ASI updates a couple of weeks earlier, but had the idea to try and make video versions of them to save time, as it took me an average 3-4 hours last year to write an update (gazing at graphs and satellite images not included). But I've never made videos before, and it takes me a while to get over the psychological barrier to do new things. So after fiddling with settings for a while and trying stuff out, I realized a couple of things, leading to this video:

Luckily, my slow start wasn't a problem, as the Arctic melting season has a slow start itself, just like last year. At least, when it comes to area and extent numbers.

We know, based on the latest PIOMAS update and the 2012/2013 Winter Analysis I did a couple of weeks back, that 2013 so far looks pretty similar to 2012, except perhaps for the initial configuration, with thicker ice on the Siberian side of the Arctic instead of in the Beaufort Sea.

I can repeat one part of the Winter Analysis, as my opinion hasn't changed:

Despite a couple of differences, this melting season looks similar to last year's melting season and so it will probably beat the 2007 records. Whether it will also beat last year's records is too early to tell, as weather is still an important factor. We used to see rebounds in the Arctic whenever a record low was hit (also known as 'recovery! recovery!' on fake skeptic blogs), but I'm not sure how bouncy the Arctic is anymore.

The start is slow, just like last year. The why and whereto is explained below.

The Four Charts That Really Matter

Guest post by R. Gates

Recently on Judith Curry's blog, a guest post was submitted by DocMartyn which was a rather nicely (from a math perspective) done extrapolation of past tropospheric temperature trends and cycles out to 2040 and beyond. It was essentially a nice job of, as he put it, "graphology", or in other words "curve fitting". Not great science, but some nifty math. Essentially DocMartyn's curve fitting graphology approach has led him to conclude that tropospheric temperatures will remain flat to 2040 or so before accelerating upward once more. 

I happen to strongly feel that DocMartyn's projective curve fitting approach will prove to be grossly in error (as almost all such curve fitting is, except for pure chance), but here's the thing-- in the big picture of Earth's energy imbalance caused by accumulating anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the tropospheric temperatures are quite secondary. The troposphere is a low thermal inertia part of the overall energy system of the planet and contains only a fraction of the overall energy.  It seems however, that there is an undue preoccupation with focusing on this part of the system-- probably because we as humans happen to live in it, and also because it is easy to measure. And since the troposphere can be fickle and far more subject to short-term noise from natural variability, it makes the most sense to look at the parts of the system such as the oceans and cryosphere that have greater thermal inertia and are hardest to change from short-term noise. When doing this, and comparing it to the constant upward trend in CO2 emissions, the following four charts become the most salient in terms of understanding what is really happening:

Party like it's 1989

This guest blog was sent to me by Bill Fothergill, also known by his nom de plume billthefrog. It discusses and takes on the yearly fake skeptic tradition of misleading people into thinking all is fine because ice cover around the maximum (when viewed from above, of course, not from the side) is just as large or even larger than in year X. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. Thanks, Bill!

Another thrilling instalment in the long running saga
of the “Arctic Sea Ice Recovery”

The Arctic Sea Ice Blog features a frequently updated set of links to relevant news articles. (Or should that be “arcticles”?) One of these recently linked out to a blog hosted by the Toronto Financial Post and written by the redoubtable Lawrence Solomon. The heading of the piece in question loudly and proudly proclaimed…

Arctic sea ice back to 1989 levels, now exceeds previous decade

On one level Mr Solomon’s claim is nothing more than egregious nonsense, but it is nonetheless worth looking at in order to see how cleverly the misdirection is perpetrated. (It is also worth looking at his article for no other reason than to see the somewhat unambiguous feedback provided to Mr Solomon by a certain Neven Acropolis.)

Arctic freezing season ends with a loud crack

This is a guest blog I wrote for Climate Progress and Skeptical Science. You may use it as a new open thread to discuss the cracking event. I will try and do a more detailed winter analysis in April, if Allah and time permit.

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The sea ice cap on top of the Arctic Ocean is often imagined to be a monolithic, continuous sheet of ice floating on water. A closer look quickly shows it is rather a collection of larger and smaller pieces of sea ice. Of course, we have all seen the images of ice floes separated by open water during summer, but even during winter the ice pack gets fractured, leading to leads that quickly freeze over again. This explains how from the 1950's onwards submarines were able to emerge at the North Pole (the image on top is showing the USS Connecticut as it surfaces in the Arctic Circle on March 19th 2011; copyright: Kevin S. O'Brien, U.S. Navy). The subs couldn't break through the thick ice and had to look for a lead where the ice was thinner.

Strangely enough those who deny the reality and potential consequences of AGW still like to abuse this event and claim it somehow proves that nothing unusual is happening up North. It doesn't prove or disprove anything, as cracks and leads have always been a normal feature of the Arctic sea ice pack. But 'normal' is a word that has become less and less applicable to the Arctic in recent times. The 2012 melting season was the latest climax in a series of record years, that showed conclusively that the ice is thinner than it has been for a very long time.

We don't even have to await the coming melting season to see this re-confirmed. We can see it right now, at the end of the freezing season. Like I just said, cracks are a regular feature of the Arctic, but this video below, made by NOAA's Visualization Lab, shows a cracking event that is very rare, if not unique:

Ice, however thin, doesn't fracture by itself. It needs wind to pull the ice pack apart. This wind was provided by a big, intense and stubborn high pressure area that started about a month ago and kicked the Beaufort Gyre into action, which is an ocean circulation pattern that transports the ice in a clockwise fashion from the North American coast towards Siberia.

This short animation of ASCAT radar images shows the movement in 10 day intervals from January 1st onwards, compared to the previous three winters. The black dot represents the North Pole, the white mass below it is the northern part of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the brighter colours represent thicker multi-year ice that survived last year's melting season:

Max reached (?)

Cryosphere Today sea ice area and IJIS sea ice extent numbers are now so much below the peaks reached so far that it looks like the ice pack has reached its maximum size and will now start to get smaller as we transition from freezing season to melting season. Mind you, I called the max CT SIA twice last year, but each time it peaked some more. But given the numbers and the weather forecast I'd say this is it.

IJIS SIE is now 175K km2 below the peak of 14.28 million km2 reached on March 15th, two days earlier than last year:

CT SIA is now 211K km2 below the peak of 13.80 million km2 reached on February 27th, more than a month earlier than last year:

CT SIA anomaly above zero

After all those negative records that were reported not so long ago (how many were there? I've lost count), it is nice to be once again given the opportunity to make known a positive record: Global sea ice area as reported on the Cryosphere Today website has been above the zero baseline for two days now (data here).

Even though the CT SIA anomaly dips ever lower, the anomaly can still go positive around this time of the year.  This event follows the previous one a lot earlier than the one before that, which was a record 444 days and the first full calendar year of negative anomaly.

As usual the Antarctic sea ice anomaly is so positive that it compensates for the semi-permanent negative anomaly in the Arctic:

Record dominoes 13: CT global SIA maximum

I doubt this is the end of the record streak, but as we approach the end of the year, this will probably be the final record domino of 2012. And what a fitting number to end it with!

The record fell over three weeks ago (see data). The reason I'm reporting it now is not just because I'm lazy or because the last time I called a maximum, I was heavily traumatized, but because I wanted to give WUWT and other fake skeptic blogs the chance to let their readers know about this new CT global sea ice area record, as they always invoke it to downplay the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. But somehow they're silent. How come, I say, how come?

I don't think combining the measurements of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover is particularly useful - it's like combining the weight of overweight and undernourished people and say: see, no hunger! - but it is an interesting statistic, and of course the trend is going down (albeit not as fast as Arctic SIA, due to a small positive trend in Antarctic SIA).

So here's the graph from Piotr Djaków's Pogoda i Klimat website:

And here are the numbers for the 2005-2012 period (in million km2):

• 2005: 22.051
• 2006: 21.776
• 2007: 21.234
• 2008: 22.177
• 2009: 21.003
• 2010: 21.043
• 2011: 20.902 (previous record)
• 2012: 20.650

Another record broken this year was that of the amount of shipping via the Northern Sea Route (hat-tip to Harvey Puca for this link to the Barents Observer article):

CT SIA finally above -2 million km2 anomaly mark

After three full months the Cryosphere Today sea ice area anomaly trend line has finally left the zone below the 2 million square kilometre mark:
As usual, Jim Pettit is serving the current statistical hors d'oeuvres:

• CT SIA area increased by 203k km2 yesterday; that was the fifth double century increase this year, equalling the number of such days seen last year (three of which occurred in the first week of November).
• Area now stands at 6.19 million km2. That's more than 300k km2 less than last year on the same day, and nearly 50k less than 2007.
• Area has increased by 3.955 million km2 in the 47 days since the minimum was reached.
• SIA is the lowest ever seen on day .8301. 2012 has had the lowest daily area 139 times, or 45.4% of the year.
• The SIA daily average for October was 4.3076575 million km2, barely edging out 2007's 4.3089695 km2.
• The negative SIA anomaly fell below two million km2 yesterday, the first time it's done so since August 1. The anomaly had been greater than two million for 90 consecutive days, including the top three, and 12 of the top 20, largest negative anomalies on the record.

Here's the CT SIA graph: