End Zone 4: sea surface temperature

We are entering the final phase of the melting season. Extent decrease rates are getting lower and lower and soon we will start seeing the first days of extent growth, followed soon after by minimum extent. I figured it might be interesting to have a look at what happened in other years, specifically the years of the 'new Arctic era': 2007, 2008 and 2009. Perhaps we'll see some parallels that give us an idea of when and how the 2010 melting season will end.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any daily images from sea surface temperatures, but I think the following images of monthly data are sufficient to give us a feel for sea surface temperatures in the last 4 years. Mind you, these are anomalies that are being shown. Images are provided by JAXA/EORC.

First let's have a look at the month of August. As this year's August is drawing to an end I've decided to include it in this animation:

 

As we can see 2010 resembles 2008 and 2007 more than it does 2009 which was the coolest of the 4 years. If it weren't for that big band of (multi-year) ice sticking out in the East Siberian Sea might resemble 2007 even more than it does 2008.

And here's September 2007, 2008 and 2009:

2007 looks extremely hot compared to 2008 and 2009. Could this be having an influence on atmospheric patterns? To be precise, were those warm SSTs in 2007 responsible for the prolonged Arctic Dipole Anomaly that extended the melting season beyond mid-September?  I'm sure I'll come back to this as I learn more, but I won't mind if some of the smarter people want to go into this in the comment section.

What I did do in the past few weeks, is save daily sea surface temperature images from NCEP's Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch of the Environmental Modeling Center. You can check out the animation I made just a week ago, and here's the animation for the past week (these are mean SSTs, not anomalies): 

 

Comments

[Andrew Xnn]

The Arctic dipole anomaly is a pressure pattern with high pressure in the arctic regions of North America, and a low pressure in Eurasia (which is unusual). This lets more southern winds into the Arctic ocean resulting in more ice melting and eventually warmer surface temps. So, the warmer temperatures of 2007, were more a product of the dipole than a cause. My thoughts are that a warmer Siberian sea may help re-inforce low pressure over Eurasia. However, it's much too early to discern if there is much of a feedback mechanism.

That said, the really big change will come as Greenland melts. It's influence on the atmospheric pressure patterns of the Arctic will diminish and newer (and probably warmer) circulation patterns will likely emerge. In the future, there is going to be a lot more weather in the Arctic than the stagnant conditions that have been the norm.

[FrankD]

Neven, you've really been excelling yourself lately. This has been a great series for an already-great blog. Don't be gone too long :-(

BTW - typo between the two pix, I think - "East Greenland" should be "East Siberian", ja?

[Neven]

However, it's much too early to discern if there is much of a feedback mechanism.

It is, but it's interesting. I read somewhere the ADA is becoming more frequent. Maybe it's caused by warmer SSTs, or it could be the other way round. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? ;-)

Neven, you've really been excelling yourself lately. This has been a great series for an already-great blog. Don't be gone too long :-(

I'm back again. This was the first comment I read. I corrected the typo, thanks (I don't know why, but I keep calling the East Siberian Sea 'East Greenland Sea')

Now for the other comments.