Temps July 2011

I've waited a few days extra to get all the images in, so now it's time to have a look at what air and sea surface temperatures did in the past month, and compare that to what happened in previous years.

Air Temperatures

As in the previous blog post on temps in June I have made use of the Daily Mean Composite page, compiled by the Physical Science Division of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory. Because of the switch in weather patterns halfway the month, I've decided to retrieve images for the first half and one for the second half of the month (click for a larger version):

Quite the difference, eh? First half of the month blazing hot, almost all over the Arctic. Second half of the month the clouds move in and all of the heat moves to eastern Siberia. The Canadian Archipelago was a couple of degrees warmer than climatology all through the month.

Here's the image for the whole month:

This is how July looked in previous years (click for a larger version):

All in all it looks like this July saw slightly higher temperatures than in previous years, despite the switch in weather patterns halfway through the month.

But of course, sea surface temperatures are more important when it comes to melting, so let's have a look at what happened in the Arctic waters.

Sea surface temperatures

These images come from the EORC-JAXA webpage and here's what the SST anomalies looked like in the past month:

And in previous years (click for a larger version):

Just as in previous comparisons this year resembles 2005 and 2009, but is almost the spitting image of 2007. Lots of warm waters on the Pacific side, and of course very warm in the Kara and Laptev Seas.

If it hadn't been for the switch in weather patterns, I think it's reasonable to say this year would have left 2007 in the dust. Let's see what those warm waters can do this month.

Comments

[FrankD]

Anyone know whats up with the DMI SST maps, They haven't been updated for nearly three weeks.

I've been archiving them all year to make an animation, too...

:-(

[Chris Reynolds]

AO projected to go negative.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_mrf.shtml
Suggestion of high pressure reassertion.
http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/arcisoTTPPWW.gif

However rate of change seems 'over the hill'.
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ext_rates_n.png

So things may seem unclear.

However the ice has taken a pounding in the periphery of the Eastern Arctic from the low pressure systems. These will have mixed the waters warmed in early July under the ice edge. This is because of Ekman transport (movement of water through the column to the right of wind direction), low pressure has a divergent impact. The effect of this seems to be apparent in the Bremmen AMSRE - the decreasing concentration in Beaufort/Chucki. i.e. whilst the extent reduction rate had declined the ice was thinning.

From IARC/JAXA - after sub 100k day to day differences (first differential) since 14/7/11, the latest are:

Delta Extent / Date.
-22969 30/07
-34687 31/07
-18594 01/08
-2500 02/08
-22500 03/08
-94531 04/08
-105938 05/08
That this uptick has happened as the AO has gone negative is no coincidence.

I expect some exciting activity in Beaufort/Chucki during the coming 2 weeks. Although of course I could be wrong. :)

[Neven]

Anyone know whats up with the DMI SST maps, They haven't been updated for nearly three weeks.

Yes, it's a shame really. I'll write a mail to someone over at DMI.

Chris R, I use the ECMWF 10 day forecast maps (click N-Hem. and then the dates on the 500 hPa bar) to get an idea of what is going to happen.