ASI 2012 update 5: when graphs agree

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 IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) and Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2011 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 that can be of particular interest.

Check out the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website
for daily updated graphs, maps and live webcam images.

* There are still two weeks left to vote on the polls in the right hand bar.
One is for Cryosphere Today minimum daily sea ice area, the other for NSIDC minimum monthly sea ice extent (the one that is used for the SEARCH SIO projections). More info in this blog post.

June 15th 2012

When even odd man out Arctic ROOS - popular in certain quarters during certain seasons - says that 2012 currently has the lowest sea ice extent and area, then you know we're talking business. Since the last ASI update things started out slow at first, but then trend lines dropped off a cliff, on some graphs even approaching vertical conditions, century breaks everywhere you look. Practically all graphs are in agreement, except for one.

So what is causing the Arctic to scream extra loud (just in case somebody out there is still not hearing it)? There are two obvious reasons. First of all, the easy ice is going. All that extra ice that gave rise to the late and relatively high maximum, was wafer-thin. The second reason is that prolonged clear skies, especially over the Beaufort Sea, has caused a lot of melt ponds to form. These cause satellite sensors to see open water where there actually is none.

This 'goodbye, easy ice, hello, melt ponds' theory explains a lot, but I don't think it tells the whole story. There are other factors as well. Either way, it's one hell of a start to the melting season. But will it last?

Sea Ice Extent (SIE)

So if even the Arctic ROOS graphs indicate that 2012 has the smallest ice cover for this time of year, which graph could possibly be disagreeing? Why, it's our beloved IJIS SIE graph that hasn't quite come around yet:

It's getting there, but it still has 2012 in third position. Maybe this is because of the switch from AMSR-E to WindSat, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter either in this phase of the melting season. Nevertheless, 2012 had the highest daily SIE decrease for the last 9 days, a series including 6 century breaks.

The current difference between 2012 and other years (without the unrealistic last data point that gets revised upwards) is as follows:

• 2005: -373K (-57,531)
• 2006: -217K (-59,609)
• 2007: -475K (-63,328)
• 2008: -489K (-58,500)
• 2009: -651K (-55,938)
• 2010:  +24K (-74,120)
• 2011:  +47K (-66,010)

Between brackets is the average daily SIE decrease for the month of June. 2012's average daily SIE decrease for June is currently -87,344 km2 per day. It's almost as if July has already started.

Sea Ice Area (SIA)

Fasten your seat belts for this one. The Cryosphere Today SIA graph has the 2012 trend line going through the basement, leaving all the other years in dust and debris:

7 century breaks in a row (of which two double centuries), and counting. Amazing stuff. I mean, look at that graph.Of course, SIA anomaly is also showing something we have not yet seen before around this time of year:The current difference between 2012 and the other years is as follows:

• 2005: -1,178K (-93,233)
• 2006:  -570K (-88,414)
• 2007:  -525K (-101,301)
• 2008:  -674K (-86,647)
• 2009: -1,181K (-86,332)
• 2010:  -522K (-105,310)
• 2011:  -549K (-101,230)

Between brackets is the average daily area decrease for the month of June. We're halfway through the month and 2012's average daily area decrease for June is currently -117,737 suare km per day. This is obviously the SIA's month of mega-melt (it's July for SIE).

Regional SIE and SIA

Regional graph of the week:
Sea ice area in the Beaufort Sea has taken a second nosedive and is very low for the time of year (also see the MASIE graph for this region on the regional graphs page). This has come as a great surprise, at least to me. Like I've written ever since the 2011/2012 Winter Analysis post, I was under the impression that, whereas the Siberian and Atlantic side of the Arctic looked pretty vulnerable (confirmed now), the ice on the Pacific and Canadian side of the Arctic had grown quite a bit thicker because of low temperatures and winds pushing the ice across from the Arctic Basin.

This seems not to be the case for the Beaufort Sea, as corroborated by data from the IceBridge mission and of course satellite images. A huge polynya has opened up due to a persistent high-pressure system over the area, with the Sun beating down on the sorry looking ice floes. Remember, we are approaching the Summer Solstice, which means there is a huge amount of insolation there, more than anywhere on the planet (edit: almost as much as in the Sahara).

In its latest monthly analysis the NSIDC also drew attention to the situation in the Beaufort Sea:

Although ice extent has remained high in the Bering Sea, open water areas have developed in parts of the Arctic Ocean, notably along the coasts of the Beaufort and Laptev seas. These openings are largely driven by winds pushing the ice away from fast ice, ice that is attached to the coast and that does not move with the winds. That the open water areas have not refrozen points to the relatively warm conditions over the Arctic, particularly in the Beaufort Sea.

The ice cover in the southern Beaufort Sea is also substantially broken up, with many individual ice floes instead of a consolidated pack. This makes the ice in this region vulnerable to enhanced melt during summer, as the sun rises higher in the sky and the dark open water areas between the floes readily absorb solar energy.

But of course, this isn't the only reason SIE and SIA have been dropping like rocks. The easy ice vanishing from the Bering Sea (last week's regional graph of the week), melt in Hudson Bay getting underway, and the carnage in the Siberian regions also have a lot to do with the big decreases.

Cryosphere Today area per IJIS extent (CAPIE)

With IJIS still wavering a bit, and CT SIA going down like crazy, we can all guess what the effect on the CAPIE graph has been:
This is one of the indications that there is quite a bit of melt ponding going on, just like in sunny 2007. All of these melt ponds get counted as open water for sea ice area, but not for sea ice extent where there is a threshold of 15% in a given grid cell. There have to be a lot of big melt ponds in a grid cell for it to be counted as open water. For this reason SIA goes down faster than SIE, and that's why the percentage drops. The fact that it drops so much more than other years, looks to me like a confirmation of melt ponding.

If you want to have more info and  know how the CAPIE graph came into being, you can read the Area vs Extent blog post from 2010, and its follow-up.

Sea Level Pressure

The Danish Meteorological Institute has solved its technical issues and so their excellent daily updated maps are online again.Let's have a look at what happened in the last two weeks:

There we have our culprit. That big yellow, orange and then red high-pressure system that positioned itself over the Beaufort Sea, intensified and then stayed there for a while, has caused open skies on the one hand, and also blew open that large polynya off the Canadian coast and caused the Beaufort Gyre to start churning that ice towards the Central Arctic.

However, towards the end of the animation we see the yellow disappear and a big blue low-pressure system forming over the Canadian Archipelago. This was predicted by the ECMWF weather forecasting system, so let's have a look at the 6-day panel to see what's next in store:

It looks like we're going to see the exact opposite conditions in the coming week, with that low staying put over the Beaufort Sea and bringing the Beaufort Gyre to a halt. According to melting-season-rules this should slow down SIE and SIA decreases considerably, but at the same time I can't help but wonder what those cyclonic winds are going to do the ice pack. Never mind the fact there is a serious high forming over the Siberian regions, right around the time of the Summer Solstice. Open water + 24 hr Sun = mucho heat accumulation.

Temperatures

It's still anomalously warm over Siberia, and it will probaby get warmer with those forecasted highs. The rest of the Arctic doesn't look very warm right now (two weeks ago Hudson Bay and the Canadian Archipelago looked a tad warmer):

The big orange blotch of warm SSTs that we saw in the Barentsz Sea two weeks ago has subsided a bit, but now we see red spots all over the Arctic, in Baffin Bay, in polynyas, even in Bering Strait:

That red can start to fade from one day to the next, but other SST graphs on the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website show it too. We'll have to keep an eye on that, as it will play a determining role in the second part of the melting season.

Update conclusion

The easy ice has almost melted out, but at the same time polynyas on both sides of the Arctic are getting bigger, with the Kara and Laptev Seas losing ice at record speed. Add to that the formation of melt ponds on the ice in the Beaufort Sea, and it's no wonder trend lines have been plummeting every which way you look.

The question now is: Will the conditions that were so conducive to melting have an inertia-like effect on the SIE and SIA numbers? And what is that big low going to do? Will it tear up the ice pack so we get to see the holes we did in the 2010 melting season? And how about those highs over the Siberian coast during Summer Solstice?

A lot of questions. Answers coming soon.

Comments

[Neven]

Graphs are agreeing again.

Except for IJIS, again. There's a bit of a lag there.

There will be a new update this weekend, BTW.

[Seke Rob]

The gods of melt did not like the "Never Mind" ;>)

What A.Dodger already recorded... "slapped out" in one day:
2012.4850 -1.8092500 7.1121540 8.9214039
2012.4877 -1.9257137 6.9042220 8.8299360

[Seke Rob]

Here's how the Atmos/CT 365 days rolling average anomaly looks like... vying for top spot:

http://bit.ly/CTARCA

[crandles]

>"Keep us up-to-date, crandles."

The Gompertz fit for 27th June CT areas gives 7.286 so 6.904 is .382 below the fit.

The linear regression translates that to an estimate of .294 below the September Gompertz fit of 4.295 to give a prediction of 3.99M Km^2 for NSIDC Sept average extent.

The standard error on the linear regression is 0.34 but that is likely to be an underestimate of forecast errors standard deviation.

So that still seems around a 60% chance of a record low.

However, forecasts for high pressure giving clearer skies and/or Dipole Anomaly might suggest a lower expected extent than 3.99 and a higher probability of a record.

[idunno]

Hi Seke Rob,

That 365 rolling average graph looks very interesting. Is there anywhere a 365 day volume graph?

Some brief comments on CT areas...

2010 is still marginally in the lead, but 2010 was the year of the huge early melt in Hudson Bay, see...

ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/r10_Hudson_Bay_ts.png

And the incredible number being reported for the Canadian Archipelago has now become more credible:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.12.html

[idunno]

Hi all,

Now that we're bringing the gods into it...

Which god? Neptune or Apollo?

On the one hand we have, at the period of peak insolation, approximately 1.8Mkm2 which has changed albedo from ice to water, which equates to a very big number of Watts.

On the other hand, Neven's ocean heat flux post has some absolutely terrifyingly large numbers in it too.

Now I could try to work out for myself if one of these factors is insignificant compared to the other, but I'd only hurt my head, and get the wrong answer anyway.

Over to the class swats... ;)

[L. Hamilton]

"2010 is still marginally in the lead"

I dunno, by my reckoning the latest date in 2012 is about 100k lower than 2010 according to both CT and DMI.

[idunno]

Hi Larry,

Nah, I reckon its day 178, with 2010 slightly ahead:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

I expect 2012 to resume the lead tomorrow or the next day, (But who knows?).

Also it occurs to me that, with each year being 365.25 days long, one of these years is half-a-day out of synch with the other. As melt is currently averaging about 100k per day, that could make quite a large difference at this time of year.

[Shortfatape]

I could be wrong, but it looks like the pressure ridge off Barrow is breaking up. Looks like a big hole in it: about 1/3 of the way in from the left edge of the cam image, there seems to be a chunk missing out of the ridge. A gap is showing up on the radar image, too.

http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam

[Al Rodger]

idunno.
Annual rolling averages. Is there anywhere a 365 day volume graph? Yes there is. The red trace on the graph linked below (also linked on the Lnng-Term Graphs page) is a daily 365 day rolling average from PIOMAS.
PIOMAS 2.0 graph (Sometimes 2 clicks to 'access your attachment').

[Seke Rob]

The emphasis is "anomaly" in the rolling average chart I posted. The Jan.1 present also exists, with a normalized JAXA anomaly curve overlayed:

http://bit.ly/CTAANM

Extent and Area are separating when running with these 2 [as still used for CAPIE, I think]. Whilst the YTD difference looks big, the pace at which 2012 is gaining on 2011 is huge. By August they'll be much closer if not 2012 having passed 2011. For reference, by July 31, the YTD 2011 anomaly stands at -1,117M Km square. With -1.9M anomaly now [600K greater to same day last year] it's going by strides, but not going to pass 2011. Maybe by the time we hit the minimum. Say this falls on August 31 for Area, 2011 ran at -1.2M then, we'd be needing -2.4M from now till Aug.31 to get to that number. The twisted sisters will draw another 2 year trend to say it's been a recovery, ignoring that the actual same day of any preceding year will have 2012 look disastrous, but hey we're still early in the summer [predicted 40C here for the weekend]

P.S. The Greek god of melt would be Hephaestus, Vulcanus for the Romans... they played with fire.

[Joe Shea]

Not related to the current melt year, but I was recently pointed to this animation of multi-year sea ice in the Arctic:

http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/video/2011/old-ice-becoming-rare-in-arctic

Great blog, by the way.

[Espen Olsen]

First melt ponds seen in front of the web cam at Buoy #4:
http://obuoy.datatransport.org/monitor#buoy4/webcam

[Seke Rob]

Lou's graphs has a link to a 12 month [daily] animation on see ice thickness, through a couple of days ago. Click Arctic, 12 month ice thickness: http://www.grinzo.com/energy/graphs.html Neven's daily graphs has a prediction up this moment for July 4 [in thumbnail]. It's amazing how visual the flows become, particularly through Fram into the Greenland Sea.

[Kris]

Shortfatape remarked:

... the pressure ridge off Barrow is breaking up.

Quite right.

Moreover, we can see a large open water field behind the ridge, however not visible at the Univ Bremen charts.

Puzzling...

[Artful Dodger]

Thoughts and Prayers go out to NSIDC & NCAR Climate Scientists, Staff and their families living in Boulder, CO. The Waldo Canyon fire is just 1.5 miles from the University of Colorado Campus. Best wishes and hope for your safety in this darkest hour.

[Bob Henson]

@Artful Dodger: Thanks for the kind words and thoughts! We're doing much better here in Boulder today. You can track fire updates here:

http://boulderoem.com/emergency-status

The fire is almost halfway contained and there's very little smoke visible now, so I think we're out of the (burning) woods for the time being. It's still looking like a long, hot summer, though.

[Artful Dodger]

Stay strong Bob, and be safe. We're all counting on you to keep doing what you do!

[Werther]

This is the wonderful pic I promest to link yesterday. Sermeq Kujalleq on 12 april 2012.

[Werther]

To give you some idea of the scale on the photograph:
- part of the calving front plm. 5 km
- cliff about 110 m high acc. to LDEO flight measurements
- hill in background 300 m over SL

[Ghoti Of Lod]

Looks like International Arctic Buoy Program buoy 83465 is rushing out the Fram. I don't know how to find buoy details like original ice thickness when it was placed but watched the ice thickness animation on LOu's site and I think the buoy is on ice marked 3m thick now.

The various graphics on the International Arctic Buoy site (linked to on the Daily Graphs page) don't agree with each other but the table value for 83465 matches the image Daily with NSIDC location. The buoy is now at 81.548N -5.934. Where does the Fram Strait officially begin?

[Alberto Silva]

The Polynya in the Laptev Sea has not grown appreciably in the last week. However, the US Naval Research Laboratory is showing widespread thinning of sea ice

Maybe most of the melting in the last two weeks was hidden as thinning (instead of area reduction), giving the false impression of a non-melting sea ice.

If this is true, could it be, now as the weather is shifting to a negative Arctic Oscillation and a Dipole Anomaly , that a strong extent and area reduction in Laptev Sea ice is inminent?

Or instead the US Naval Research Laboratory thickness map reliability is poor, so that one cannot use that map to forecast the pattern of melting?

[Account Deleted]

In the capital of Greenland this June turns out the warmest for 130 years meteorological observetion.

[Werther]

Morning Alberto
Look at thread ‘Kind of Blue; my 8 june entry showing an ice thickness map by the Alfred Wegener Institute. Ice is thin in the Laptev Sea.
Ghoti, the Fram is centered on the line Flade Isblink (NE Greenland) – Nordaustlandet (Svalbard). So the buoy is still a hundred km north.
Two impressions:
-thinning is by far the dominant process since spring 2011. Even if extent/area numbers stall or reverse, this process is going on (although not in linear form). PIOMASS seems not to support that call. But their numbers were improved by 1,5 million km2 of FIY last winter. US NRL is useful for the general picture.
-Concerning a Sermeq K. calving: watching the pic above at high resolution I wonder what sort of process this glacier is in. It’s not like Peterman’s majestic break up events. The glacier front is completely broken like in an alpine crevasse-fall, while the Peterman is, at least from distance, quite smooth. The recent retreat brought the front back from a ‘sill’ or threshold a couple of hundred meters USL. It is now over the deep part. I wonder whether we could compare whats happening to doline formation in Karst plateaus. That is, extended sinking of parts of the ice mass.

[Werther]

Oh yes, for good interpretation... the map came from CE Journal, 23 oct 2010. Seems to have been part of Konrad Steffen's slide show. The calving front is to date 6 km further back, over the green going to blue.

[Account Deleted]

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/3209/arcticj.jpg
In today's MODIS image shows multiple areas of open water. This means thin ice.

[AmbiValent]

Buoy 2012D, between Greenland and the North Pole, is reporting strange values - the snow there completely melted yesterday, and today it reports over a meter of ice melt. But since 2012D was placed on first year ice, it could simply be that the ice cracked and the buoy fell into one of the cracks...

[Werther]

R04c04 30 june
Look how a low near the New Sib Islands and a high near the Pole are churning up area. It is 270 km into the Central Basin, north of the Laptev Sea. That was slush last summer. Any wind now can rip the pattern less swarm of floes…

[Werther]

AIL, you saw that too.
I agree, its rapidly thinning.

[Account Deleted]

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot.csv

now 2th place after 2010

[Account Deleted]

Werther, I look forward to the latest data on PIOMAS in June.

I think we are close to the time when most of the ice in the central Arctic ice is transformed into a low concentration. As it was a month ago in the Kara Sea.

[crandles]

AIL80,

PIOMAS June data. Yes, will be interesting.

Kimmirut Bay in the last few days seems to have gone from just a few small breaks in the ice to virtually no ice. That seems very quick to me. The angle we view this at is rather different from looking at it from above and that probably makes quite a difference but still it raises fears of a rapid dissappearance.

While I doubt we are yet at that point for most of the central basin, both angle of view and scale are rather different, I do worry that the ice could be a good deal thinner than PIOMAS had at May.

AIUI Piomas only corrects thickness based on arial concentration information. So a rapid decline in volume may indicate they are overestimating thickness and so further rapid declines may occur. This sort of system has a risk of collapse in the volume. I hope that isn't too large a risk yet.

[Espen Olsen]

Crandles:

As I recall the situation at Kimmirut Bay from previous years, the ice goes from pretty ice covered to almost no ice in 24 - 48 hours, but that will also in my opinion happen in the central basin one day not so far away.

[Seke Rob]

Going back in the path where JAXA posts the csv data file, found they still produce the classic all year curve chart: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png

With the pre-adjustment to pre-adjustment change from 29th to 30th of 130KKm square, there's an official century in the air for them. The daily melt since this winters peak mid March now exceeds 50K daily: http://bit.ly/JAXDSM . That's 106 days now and counting. 2010 with 60K daily till this point is far in the lead on that metric.

[AmbiValent]

A further collapse? What can I say?

"Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There's the Sun over the horizon,
A bright glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know how far it will go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?

Bright ice,
Melting goes higher.
Bright ice,
How can you crack and fail?
How can the ice that seemed so mighty
Suddenly seem so frail?
Bright ice..."

(exitstageleft)

[Werther]

AV... Goethe or Shakespeare? No... Art Garfunkel. Nevertheless, appropriate.
McClure Strait breaking up, in situ melt near Resolute, Boothia Gulf next to Brodier Peninsula. The NWP is under pressure.
Aulavik on N. Banks yesterday +20dC, Resolute +12, Mould Bay +12, Eureka +14.
They're all reporting at the heighest possible temp in the last 10-15 years.

[Account Deleted]

"As I recall the situation at Kimmirut Bay from previous years, the ice goes from pretty ice covered to almost no ice in 24 - 48 hours, but that will also in my opinion happen in the central basin one day not so far away."

The example is not very good, because now there is 10-20 degrees Celsius. Such temperatures are unlikely in the Central Arctic. Therefore, the formation of polynyas in the Kara Sea and Baffin Bay is better illustrates the process of the probable destruction of thin sea ice in the central Arctic by wind and waves at near zero temperatures.

[Neven]

That's a good one, AmbiValent. :-D

I wanted to do one called 'Arctic's got Blue Ice' by Elton John:

Blue ice
Arctic's got blue ice
Like a deep blue sea
On a blue blue day
Blue ice
Arctic's got blue ice
When the morning comes
It'll melt away
And I say

Blue ice melting in the sun
Melting in the rain
Arctic's got blue ice
And it is gone, and it is gone
again

;-)

[adelady]

"Such temperatures are unlikely in the Central Arctic."

Surely the issue when it gets to that point will not just be air temperature, water temperature will be what delivers the knockout punch. The air needs only to be not so cold as to override the warmth from the water.

[Neven]

Somebody already mentioned this, but (holy crap!) there's holes in the ice pack all over the place...

[Al Rodger]

crandles
You say "...a rapid decline in volume may indicate they are overestimating thickness..."
PIOMAS does say on its website of its New Version (Version 2) "Our comparisons with data and alternate model runs indicate that this new trend is a conservative estimate of the actual trend." and also gives error bars (1 sd = 760 cu km), which is big if summer ice is dropping below 4,000 cu km.
Their 'more details' link leads to a paywall but I notice Uncertainty in modeled Arctic sea ice volume, Schweiger et al 2011 can be accessed in PDF form here allowing you to delight in such quotes as "...measurements of thickness are spotty..." or "...teardrop viscous plastic rheology..."
More seriously, "PIOMAS appears to overestimate thin ice thickness and underestimate thick ice, yielding a smaller downward trend than apparent in reconstructions from observations." Of the thick ice North of Greenland & in the CA, "...PIOMAS seems to have trouble reproducing the thick ice along the coast..."

As for the accuracy of PIOMAS -"Even though the results deliver a spectrum of possible uncertainties, showing how uncertainties are uncertain themselves, it appears possible to provide conservative estimates that bound the potential error."
The IC-SST PIOMAS 'run' provides the results we see (IC-SST = it assimilates both Ice Concentration & Sea Surface Temp data) and of the three 'runs', IC-SST provides the most conservative results. The three 'runs' have a vaiance of 1sd = 1,350 cu km. As per sec 6.3, the declaration of a new record they reckon has to exceed the pervious one by that amount.

[Account Deleted]

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/226/cryosat2.jpg

I looked again at fresh map of the CryoSat-2. The mass of ice is very flat (as the model PIOMAS predicts http://www.arcus.org/files/search/sea-ice-outlook/2010/09/pdf/pan-arctic/zhangaugustoutlook.pdf).

Ice thickness of 3-4 meters in 2010, occupies about 1 million km2. So I think the collapse of a September minimum of 4 to 1 million km2 can occur in one summer.

[Seke Rob]

AIL80, not sure how you determine "fresh", when right top it says October 2010 :O

[Account Deleted]

Seke Rob, "fresh" because this map was published just two months ago. :)

I agree, I also have a little patience. Perhaps we live in the past few months without knowing the exact amount of ice in the Arctic.

When the researchers compared data submarines, IceSat and CryoSat finally become clear about the future of Arctic ice.

[Seke Rob]

Still got a few axes to grind with some [CO2 is good for *all* plants] individuals who could not get enough of lambasting the PIOMAS "model" and trotting out the original PE chart the Cryosat-2 team put out (with clearly all wrong representation). This one will do excellent to do some muhahaha, but gentlemanly counter slapping (gloves with horseshoe ;-).

[Steve C]

My first post here, for this novice cryophile...

The current ferocious pace of melting all over the arctic this year seems obvious. One might expect that some of the thicker ice between Greenland and the Pole might survive...
Except that this ice seems to be making a bee-line for the Fram Strait:
http://iabp.apl.washington.edu/DAILYMAPS/dailyiceconc_60daytrack.jpg

So I'm inclined to predict that virtually all the arctic ice that doesn't melt in situ this summer is likely to slip out the Fram Strait (if I'm interpreting the buoy drift correctly). The long-term implications would be sobering, indeed.

SteveMDFP

[Artful Dodger]

"The example is not very good, because now there is 10-20 degrees Celsius. Such temperatures are unlikely in the Central Arctic."

We need to be clear about the sequence of events at Kimmirut. Just two days ago, with sea ice still fully covering the Harbour, temps were ~2 C. Then over about 24 hours the sea ice cleared. The next day air temp reached a high > 20 C.

Solar Energy melts the sea ice. While any ice remains air temperatures hover just over the melting point, as solar energy is consumed by the heat of fusion of the sea ice. Once all the sea ice is gone, incoming solar energy then goes into heating the air and water.

So yes, after the sea ice collapses in the Central Basin, we will definitely see air temperatures like those above... 20 C and greater.

[Account Deleted]

Steve, impossible to predict the date of the destruction of the ice in the central Arctic.

Now I looked in the 2010 and 2011 in the MODIS images.

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2010233.terra.4km
A huge number of polynyas in the central Arctic.

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2011230.terra.4km
The big hole in the ice north of the Laptev Sea.

But it is much less than in 2010.

I think this year the situation is more like 2010 - a warm winter with the Atlantic side and the cold winters of the Pacific side.

[dorlomin]

The arctic is undergoing not one, but two recoveries at the moment.
http://denialdepot.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/double-recovery-of-arctic-sea-ice.html

[Stevemosher.wordpress.com]

Neven, I'm aching to see some of your awesome animations..not to give you homework or anything.

I'm still pretty confident about a new record this sept (4.29), but would not be shocked by <4

[Artful Dodger]

... further to my June 30, 2012 at 19:04 :^)

"Normally things get hotter (their temperature rises) as you supply more heat energy. That doesn't happen at the points when things melt (change from solid to liquid) and vaporize (turn from liquid to gas). Instead, the energy you supply is used to change the state of matter. The energy doesn't vanish: it's stored as latent heat."

h/t to explainthatstuff.com for the simple physics lesson!

[crandles]

2011 PIOMAS minimum was 4 K Km^3.
Conservative estimate and with uncertainties of 0.76 and 1.35 K Km^3 mentioned in the Schweiger et al 2011 paper. So, the 2011 minimum might easily be as low as 4-0.76 = 3.25 K Km^3

The drop between 2009 and 2010 was 2.46 K Km^3. If that level of energy imbalance occured again: 3.25-2.46 would leave only 0.79 K Km^3 but with the ice volume getting that low, I think we can be sure that albedo feedback would kick in strongly and melt most of that 0.79 K Km^3 of ice.

With a drop from 30 May 2011 to 30 May 2012 of only 0.25 K Km^3, it seems unlikely we will see such a 2K+ Km^3 drop this year.

We certainly cannot conclude there is a 95% probability of a collapse in the near future - that would require the opposite of the aggresive assumption used here. However, it seems to me to be getting difficult to rule out a collapse as early as 2013.

Note that I am not saying it will happen, only that AFAICS there is a *low probability chance that it *might** happen.

If the chance of such a summer ice collapse is becoming non negligable, should climate modelers be doing more to see what effects on climate we might expect to see if it happens?

[Account Deleted]

I also found that not only in 2010 was close collapse, but also in 2006 was close.

http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsredata/asi_daygrid_swath/l1a/n6250/2006/aug/asi-n6250-20060820-v5_nic.png

Then ice on the Atlantic side was even weaker, than in 2010. The reason it is visible very warm winter. The winter of 2006 was considered as the warmest in the Arctic till winter of 2012.

Therefore I think that probably in this year the ice edge from the Atlantic side will reach the North Pole.

[Chris Biscan]

What is happening at Greenland right now is off the charts unprecedented.

Check out the Ascat images compared to the previous two years, which also are the two giant years of ice mass loss. And the 1st and 2nd place lowest albedo years.

Now 2012 has vaulted at light speed passed those years because a tipping point or saturation point has been reached.

Huge Albedo changes have taken place. This is just the start. Only a small part of Greenland's dirty underbelly has been exposed. Because we are so irresponsible as a species we have allowed this GHG forcing to get out of control.

No longer needed is a raging +PDO, +AMO, Sun, NINO for warm global temperatures.

It is now clear that GHG forcing during Northern Hemispheric Springs has reached a point where it has become noticeable in the weather.

Snow Cover Anomalies
Sea Ice Anomalies
Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies
Land Based Temperature anomalies

Starting in March the Sun takes off on it's March to the Pole. During this time insolation increases.

I believe the increased GHG forcing triggers a chain reaction of events that work together to abnormally warm the Northern Hemisphere weather this shows up in Surface temps or snow melt, it shows up.

Getting back on the topic at hand:

http://manati.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/ascat_images/ice_image/msfa-NHe-a-2012180.sir.gif

You can compare 2012 to 2011 and 2010

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2012182.aqua.1km

It's pretty amazing the change.

2012 has passed where 2011 and 2010 peaked in terms of albedo drop over the entire ice sheet.

Models the last week have tried to bring colder temps and clouds to the region, but as time goes on the models back off that and stay warmer.

How much of an effect does the Water Temps have?

Almost all of the Baffin Bay is 5C at the surface or warmer.

http://osisaf.met.no/p/flux/dli/daily/imgs/OSI_SAF_HL_201206281200_pal.jpg

The small difference in Albedo can create tremendous differences in how much heating takes place.

In fact looking at the Euro and GFS you can see the Albedo footprint in the forecast with the 850mb temps over the low albedo regions being much warmer than surrounding areas.

Basically the arctic system has no way to generate the same kind of cold it used to.

During the last 30 days. Sea Ice and Snow Cover have combined for 6-9 million square kilometers deficit. This a large change in albedo.

It's amazing to see the entire arctic climate change overnight on the big scale.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavnnh.html

Look at the Models.

ENDLESS HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEMS FORMING OVER THE ARCTIC REGION.

They are also to cold as they go on, their climo is colder than our reality.

They alwys catch up.

They torch the arctic. Expect it to be warmer then they say.

Expect the Dipole HP to be larger and stronger.

Very warm sunny skies are going to dominate.

[Llosmith57]

Albedo changes help keep the surface water warmer and delay freeze up.

Albedo questions to ask, "How much warm Atlantic water will it take to melt the MYI/CAB ice from underneath? Do soot or black carbon pollutants have any additional impacts not yet realized? How long before rainfall, not snow, begins falling in earnest over the CAB?"

Neven, thank you for your posting of ocean currents and the complex relationship they create in the arctic. I am still trying to figure out how they impact the CAB. Other than eddy formations or convective columns created by strong low pressure systems I am not sure their impacts can reach the surface of CAB ice.

Man made pollutants have been impacting the Arctic since their creation. These will continue to help melt ice by warming it via albedo changes from the top down. But these effects are fairly small. Warm rain on the other hand can destroy ice very effectively and quickly. I rather think that rain will give CAB ice its final "coup de gras".

[Matthew Opitz]

Oh man, huge swathes of the central ice pack suddenly look really bad. Chunks are all loose with water visible between them. What happened?!

Also, that band of snow on the west side of Greenland looks like the snow you find on the side of the road 3 days after a snowfall. All grey and grimy-looking, with melt-ponds and melt-lakes everywhere. That can't be good....

[Twemoran]

Can anyone identify the large, darkened valley with multiple melt ponds shown in the 'Blosseville' image from DMI?
It seems to not be connected to the ocean, and I'm wondering if it's a huge, frozen tarn.
Can't seem to find as much as a name for the feature, but the darkened albedo and numerous melt ponds may indicate an early end to the ice.

Thanks in advance
Terry

[Rob Dekker]

June 2012 could have proudly carried the title of the month of Mega Melt, were it not for the fact that July officially carries that title.

What are we to expect in July ?

[Neven]

What is happening at Greenland right now is off the charts unprecedented.

Check out the Ascat images compared to the previous two years, which also are the two giant years of ice mass loss. And the 1st and 2nd place lowest albedo years.

What the...

[paoloc]

Twemoran, i think that you made reference to the "Kong Christian IV Gletscher"
You can look in "Greenland flow variability from ice-sheet-wide velocity mapping” Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 56, No. 197, 2010

[Rob Dekker]

Chris Biscan, indeed, the change in albedo on the West Greenland ice sheet over the past few years is shocking.
I noticed that it is clearer to visualize this in the 4km resolution images for 2012, 2011, 2010 :
http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2012182.aqua.4km
http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2011182.aqua.4km
http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic.2010182.aqua.4km

P.S. Neven, will you do a new 'update' any time soon ? This thread is getting pretty long...

[Werther]

Terry,
It’s Christian IV Glacier, ending up through Nansen Fjord in the EGS. It is next to Kangerlussuaq Glacier on the south side and wide Scoresby Sund in the north. It drains the mountainous part on the ice sheet’s rim. I noticed it too, following the looks of K. glacier. As on the west side, the snow line/melt zone is rather high up this year. On K. it hasn’t worked out on calving front retreat yet.

[Neven]

Werther, I sent a mail to your hanver-address, but to no avail. Do you think you could send me a bigger version of that CAD image with the calvings and melt ponds in and around Jakobshavn? It's time for a blog post.

[AmbiValent]

Another century... CT ice area now 6,729

[idunno]

...putting 2012 back into the lead.

Looking at the latest CT colourful concentration maps, it seems to me that the areas of low concentration in the Central Basin have shifted significantly over the past several months.

Back in late winter, it was very noticeable that the sector from Greenland, to the North Pole and over to Novaya Semlya was very weak. From approx 0 degrees to 90 degrees East. This is now shown as dark purple, high concentration of ice. See...

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=02&fd=01&fy=2012&sm=06&sd=27&sy=2012

(Sorry not a very clear image)

...whereas now, the gaps are opening up in the Central Basin along a line drawn between the Beaufort and Laptev Seas.

This suggests to me that all of the Central Basin ice is moving en masse in the general direction from North Pole towards Svarlsbard, and leaving gaps behind it as it goes. Which is what I see happening here...

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png

[Artful Dodger]

CAP1E (1-day CT Area per IJIS Extent) is 72.7% as of June 28, 2012.

This means there is about 2.52 Million km^2 of either open water or flooded sea ice within the Pack Ice, with it's albedo flipped, soakin' up the Summer sun...

...inside the already broken pack.

[FrankD]

Idunno (2nd comment on this thread) will be please to hear the latest forecasts from Chanel 9 Neus:

Meteorologicos mit Poula
'Allo, classa Archipelagos Arcticos meteorologie, a Grise Fjord - Scorchio!
Minier Cambridge Bay - Scorchio!
Minier Arctic Bay - Scorchio!
Minier Sachs Harbour - Scorchio!

Meteorologicos mañana? Oh! Scorchio!

Bono Estente!

[stan]

to the blog:

I have been lurking here for about 5 months now, but since my university days i have always been interested in climate change, and believe we are witnessing some truly spectacular changes. changes which will imo change the globes climate. could a complete melt out change the hadley model?

rambling aside, i am somewhat of a yeoman in the field. more to the point, this is not my field of expertise. does anyone have any insight/speculation as to why the arctic dipole forms?

[Twemoran]

Paoloc - Werther

Thanks so much - I find my attention drawn to certain features each melt season, and this year King Christian IV has caught my eye. Now that I know what I'm looking at, a little research lies ahead.

Terry

[Seke Rob]

There is already a CT Arctic Chart of anomalies on the Long Term page, but thought of pimping that one a bit and add the rolling 365 anomaly line to that and 2 lead lines. See http://bit.ly/CTAR02 Current, well outside 2 Std.Dev, the 365 lead line loitering in the neighborhood of same state.

(feel free to exercise curtailment of joy... there is none in all of this... just another reality check.)

[Seke Rob]

Unfortunately, MASIE missed to log day 181. Form 180 to 182, 210K Km square went down the invisibleness path.

28-Jun-2012 2012180 9722319,32
29-Jun-2012 2012181
30-Jun-2012 2012182 9512211,36

All regions *except* Okhotsk had reductions (that place must be really hard to fathom, though on the UB chart I cant see there anything much left.)

[Paul Klemencic]

Chris Biscan - what a lot of information packed into one comment!

I agree on almost all of what you say, and all of the important points.
You seem to know a lot more than I do about meteorology, so you might enjoy this video of Jennifer Francis linked on this Rabett Run post:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2012/06/message-from-unknown.html

[Paul Klemencic]

idunno - The fractured ice zone that you mention running from the Laptev region to the Chukchi/Beaufort regions is pretty impressive. The ice pack seems to split, with the Siberian side moving quite differently than the Central Arctic Basin pack. And according to ECMWF forecasts (new readers - see link on Daily Maps page and select N.Hemi and 500 hPa for 72h) that Chris Biscan discusses in his comment, a HP system will be in place directly over the Central Arctic by Wednesday, July 4th, and remain and strengthen over the course of the following week. The pack should be easily viewed in the Arctic mosaic, and will get plenty of solar energy. By the end of this period, just how much open water shows up in the fractured zone?

The Bremen extent maps seem to have lost some sensitivity (with the switch to a new satellite?), and don't really show this weakness in the pack. But the MODIS images definitely do.

[Neven]

ASI update 6 is up and away!

[Seke Rob]

Now this person is as sad a specimen as Toninô Watts. Spam!