Just like with calling the CT SIA maximum, I can't even get the timing for the last open thread right. But the March open thread was getting full. This should be the last one. I think.
image by Paul Nicklen, found on the Narwhal's Left Tooth blog
I'll be gone for a couple of days, but should be back before next weekend.
This will be the last open thread of the freezing season. Use it wisely.
image found here
There's a poll in the right hand bar running until February 8th for predicting the Cryosphere Today maximum sea ice area number. Don't be afraid to share your prediction in the comments of this thread: 2012 Maximum Area Pool
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We are entering the final phase of the freezing season. After that there will be a short lull, with sunlight and warmth trying to grab the Arctic back from Winter's clutch. Then the melting season will start all over again.
Image retrieved from this blog post on ringed seals
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Edit February 4th: the scientists at the University of Washington's Polar Science Center have updated the PIOMAS volume graph:
Welcome to 2012! It's a leap year, so I predict some confusion with yearly comparisons by date after March 1st. About a month later the melting seasons starts again. Time flies almost as fast as summer ice disappears!
The NSIDC has a new monthly summary out for December. The part I found most interesting:
The past two Arctic winters were dominated by a negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, a large-scale weather pattern that brings generally warm conditions to the Arctic and colder conditions to Europe and North America. In contrast, the winter of 2011 has so far seen a mostly positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation. While temperatures were above normal in the Kara and Barents seas, the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation tends to keep the coldest winter air locked up in the Arctic, which keeps the middle latitudes free of frigid Arctic temperatures and strong snowstorms. This weather pattern helps to explain the low snow cover and warm conditions over much of the United States and Eastern Europe so far this winter.
Several studies have shown that during the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation, thick ice tends to move out of the Arctic through Fram Strait, leaving the Arctic with thinner ice that melts out more easily in summer. Scientists will be watching closely for this connection if the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation continues through the winter.
Some scientists have speculated that the negative Arctic Oscillation pattern of the last two winters was in part driven by low sea ice extent. The recurrence of the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation so far this winter, following a near-record low summer sea ice extent, does not support this thinking.
This for me was the no 1 subject of interest for this winter. If we don't see any Snowmaggedons or Snowmygawds or whatever Hollywoodesque name is assigned to blizzards by the US mainstream hysteria in the next three months, there will be a sigh of relief in Neven's house.
We sleepily await the newest updates from NSIDC and PIOMAS. In the meantime over at the SciencePoles website from the International Polar Foundation there's a very interesting interview with professor Martin Jakobsson: Investigating Arctic Paleoclimates.
I've been hibernating more than anticipated (man, I slept good last night!), but luckily there's more than 5 months to go until the start of the melting season. It's still November, so here's this month's open thread.
We don't do Antarctic here, but FrankD sent me a couple of images from Pine Island Glacier that show the now infamous crack forming. I've turned them into a small animation spanning the period March 9th 2011 - November 3rd 2011:
Unlike last year the Arctic Sea Ice blog isn't going into full hibernation.
We are sleeping with one eye open...
There will be a new open thread at the start of every month to discuss the recent going-ons in the Arctic (ice, SSTs, weather, etc) and interesting news pertaining to it.
For instance, right now there's a lot ado about the big Arctic ozone hole we witnessed last winter/early spring because of a paper by Manney et al. that has just been published in Nature: Unprecedented Arctic ozone loss in 2011.
I remembered reading about this a few months back, but was reminded by this Alfred Wegener Instute press release (in German) that has a very good explanation of why it happened: extreme, prolonged cold in the stratosphere, causing the formation of clouds that allow CFCs to destroy ozone. A strong Polar Vortex kept all that cold in the Arctic, as is mentioned in this BBC article. Dr. Jeff Masters has an excellent Wunderblog post on this that explains exactly what happened and why it's so dangerous.
Some other recent bad news is that the AMSR-E sensor aboard the Aqua satellite has stopped producing data. I'm not sure what the consequences of this will be, but it doesn't look good.
It would be great if we could discuss these and other things here.
With Bfraser's guest blog being posted yesterday and the Arctic sea ice approaching maximum extent (I think, IJIS hasn't updated the past few days), I think I can safely call an end to our semi-hibernation. As said before I'm still waiting for my virtual credit card to get cleared after which I will upgrade the blog, and hopefully not blow up the whole thing. I will write a separate post discussing the changes and ask for suggestions when the time comes.
In the meantime, here's yet another Open Thread. Good morning, Arctic!
I think this is going to be the last Open Thread. Things are getting really interesting now as we approach Arctic sea ice maximum extent and area. Most of us are already awake, but still in chill-out mode:
I think I have found a way to upgrade to a paid TypePad version without having to take a credit card (I hate those things, if only for all the paper and plastic waste). I like this free version of TypePad which functioned pretty well last melting season, but I think I'll upgrade just in case more functionality is needed, like widgets, extra authors (this is a group effort after all), comment editing, etc.
A few more weeks to go...
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Edit February 18th: below in the comments Clare linked to a piece by meteorologist Stu Ostro. The article contains a graph I thought looked interesting, as it shows how late Hudson Bay was in freezing over:
We're still hibernating, but with one eye open.
Global sea ice area is stretching for a new low (hat-tip Derek Moran):
I've converted the CT global sea ice area data to a spreadsheet and here are the minima for the previous six years (hat-tip Phil.):
2005: 14.732 (Feb 10)
2006: 14.392 (Feb 1)
2007: 14.634 (Feb 10)
2008: 15.579 (Feb 16)
2009: 15.113 (Feb 23)
2010: 14.880 (Jan 26)
2011 current (Jan 24): 14.491
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