Sea ice extent update 1: lovely colours

I'll be 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 2006-2009. The JAXA graph is favoured by almost everyone, probably because it looks so nice compared to other graphs (like the one by Arctic ROOS, the University of Bremen and the Danish Meteorological Institute). All the years have a nice colour of their own which makes it easy to eyeball the differences between trends. Most of the betting on minimum SIE is based on the IJIS data. NSIDC has a nice explanation of what sea ice extent is in their FAQ.

June 7th 2010

When I checked the IJIS website early this morning yesterday's melt was reported as 103K km² (which I tend to call a century break, based on the snooker term, a sport that is almost as slow and captivating as the Arctic summer ice melt). But as I knew this number is always revised 12 hours later I decided not to make myself look ridiculous so soon by posting this number as the 5th century break this season (more on that in a few days). The revised number was 10,667,813, making yesterday's melt 80,937 square km, the largest melt on this date in the period 2006-2010, though not a century break.

Here's the current difference between 2010 and previous years:

• 2006: -201K

• 2007: -258K

• 2008: -439K

• 2009: -373K

So for the time being 2010 has a comfortable lead (which can vanish in a few days by the way, so doesn't mean much). In previous years the melt wasn’t anything spectacular for another 3 weeks or so, although 2007 started it’s amazing run around the 20th of June with 18 century breaks in a little over 40 days. We'll see what happens.

My prediction FWIW: When meteorological conditions approach those of summer 2007 there's a very good chance 2010 will set new records.

I'll be ending these updates with a picture of the tidy graph with the lovely colours I mentioned at the start of the post:

Comments

[GFW]

Looking at the IJIS tabular data, and assuming that for now 2007 is the most relevant comparison, 2010 is running 8 days "ahead" of 2007. Melt around the solstice could be impressive.

However, it should be pointed out that 2007 had unusual *weather* (more sun, less cloud) than usual in the Arctic set up by a high pressure system over
Siberia, if I recall correctly. That may or may not happen. If it doesn't happen, we'll probably get record low volume without quite setting record low extent. If it does happen, all records should fall.

[Neven]

GFW, I don't see how anyone could disagree with that (unless their name is Steven Goddard or Anthony Watts). I hope to be posting soon on a theory linking ENSO and the presence of clouds over the Arctic. When I read about it several months ago I had this gut feeling that 2010 could be a game changer, in the sense that this summer weather conditions would remain favourable to melting. According to the theory there will be lots of clear sky. I'm really curious to see if it holds up.

[Deep Climate]

The JAXA and NSIDC charts both have their strong points. NSIDC has measurements going back to 1980, so you can see how far below the baseline the current year is.

JAXA shows all recent years, which gives a different perspcective. All recent years are pretty bunched up in May, so the summer melt appears to be a function of ice thinness (ever decreasing volume) and meterological conditions. As you say, conditions may well be ripe for an alarming run.

A suggestion: How about a standalone page showing live versions of both JAXA and NSIDC. That's what I did at the end of my piece on Lawrence Solomon, if you want to see an example of this.

http://deepclimate.org/2010/05/05/national-posts-lawrence-solomon-touts-global-cooling-part-1-hiding-the-decline-in-arctic-sea-ice/

[Neven]

Hello, DC, nice of you to drop by. :-)

I absolutely loved your piece on Solomon (and will be referring to it some time soon). It's quite hilarious that he too has the live version of the JAXA graph put up in his article. Wait a minute, it's not there anymore. Was it ever there or did I make that up with my wishful sense of humour?

A standalone page of live versions of graphs by JAXA and NSIDC is a good idea, but I'm not sure how to do this with Typepad (I took the free version which hasn't that many options). Otherwise I'd be putting those graphs in a side bar à la WUWT. Anyway I'm planning on writing an update for the JAXA SIE graph every few days.

And I'll be writing special updates for NSIDC as well. By the way, why is their May update taking so long? Are they bickering amongst themselves if they should commit to a dire forecast? :-p

[Neven]

Wait a minute, it's not there anymore. Was it ever there or did I make that up with my wishful sense of humour?

It was my wishful sense of irony. There was a link to the IARC-JAXA graph in the article by Solomon and it is still there.

[Gareth]

Hi Neven, I'll get a link to you up soon -- in my next ice post, at least. At the moment, I'm a MODIS watcher. Even if it's not really quantifiable evidence, it makes for a breathtaking view over breakfast... In the meantime the sea ice tag at Hot Topic references all my recent posts on the subject.

Good luck with the blog.

[Neven]

Thanks, Gareth. I read your latest article and found it very interesting. I'll be sure to link to any new pieces you might write about the Arctic sea ice.

[Patrick Lockerby]

Gareth: I like your article. The 'shrinking winter' anomaly is due to release of heat by the ocean into the atmosphere after Arctic sunset. The ongoing trend is for ever more open water, hence more heat, hence an ever more delayed start to the freezing season. In addition, sea ice formation releases heat, but the amount of that heat should be fairly constant from year to year, but taking the two together and adding in the annual rise in CO2 emissions steepens the trend.

Neven: an excellent resource for meteorological conditions in the Bering Strait area is Sea Ice For Walrus Outlook. Much of the data comes from Inuit sources.
http://www.arcus.org/search/siwo