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Apocalypse4Real

Thanks Neven for the comparative work.

As I detailed before the buoys suggest warm water and air temps continuing in some areas of the Arctic, especially in the thickest areas north of Greenland and the CA.

The Godiva2 ice thickness maps reveal less than two meter thick ice all the way to the NP on the Atlantic side, north of Svalbard.

Kevin McKinney

Thanks, indeed, Neven. More good context.

Perhaps a factor to keep in mind as the season progresses is that the role of lows tends to shift a bit: as the more southerly Arctic areas start to get less sun as the days shorten, the cloudy conditions tending to go with lows can begin to hold in enough heat (especially at night) that they act as a positive forcing.

More on cloud and ice loss in the Arctic:

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/mholland/papers/vavrus_holland_bailey_2010.pdf

Paradoxnl.wordpress.com

Neven, nice overview!

crandles

>Neven, nice overview!

+1


>the role of lows tends to shift a bit ... lows can begin to hold in ... heat

Perhaps also worth mentioning more swell, vertical ocean mixing, Ekman pumping as well as atmospheric effects.

Charles Longway

Neven, Can you report on the Beaufort and Chukchi regions. It looks like we have some flash melting in Beaufort. The Bremen graph of the Chukchi region looks like there has been 'a disturbance in the Force'.

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html

Steve Bloom

Interesting, Charles. I checked the last five days and they're consistent (i.e. seem to show a steady progression toward the current graphic).

Looking at the adjacent CT and NSIDC concentration graphics on the graphs page here and noting that Bremen shows anything below 10% concentration the same as open water, however, what looks to have happened is that a bunch of ice that was somewhat above 10% concentration has dropped a bit below.

Even so, it's quite striking. Also, I would assume that such low-concentration ice at this time of year at that latitude can't be long for the world.

Steve Bloom

Also, it appears that the Bremen graphic is a day ahead of the other two. Neven?

Steve Bloom

Also also also, see the NWS Anchorage Ice Desk analysis for 7/27. I'll leave a careful comparison for more experienced hands, but off the top it appears to show a lot more ice than the three aforementioned graphics. Possibly there's a different standard used, as the Ice Desk is concerned about navigation hazards.

Steve Bloom

Also^4, looking around the site a little I see that the Ice Desk has lots of sat photos linked. This one seems to show the ice still present throughout much of the Chukchi and Beaufort, but in a pretty rotten state (if all those apparent areas of small holes are indeed that).

Johannes

Here is an animation of two previous days of the Bremen map.

http://imghost.me/images/2xKUR.gif

Bob Wallace

The three holes, yes. But what's with the appearance of much ice on the southwest tip of Greenland?

AmbiValent

Steve: I think UB updates about 12 hours before CT and NIDSC.

Bob: That's almost certainly a data error. It sometimes happens that something shows up on the map one day where there was nothing and is gone the next day or two days later. (I call it "folks playing with liquid nitrogen again" as it even sometimes pops up on the Great Lakes in summer)

Neven

It looks like the flash melting game has started. There was an instance of that a couple of days back, albeit not as big as this one. Some of that ice will reappear again, but it's definite sign that there is still an enormous melting potential.

Two things are of note:
- This flash melting is three weeks earlier than last year.
- Last year a very big cyclone was the main culprit. I'm not seeing anything like it on the SLP maps this time around.

I think we can expect more instances of flash melting. 2012 is already so low, so it's only logical to assume that it will keep the lead. Especially if the weather switches. I'm going to have a look at the weather forecast now.

Neven

BTW, I also notice on the UB SIC map that the NWP is opening up big time.

Espen Olsen

Jøkelbugt North East Greenland:

I reported yesterday that within a week the the last real fast ice in all of Greenland will be broken up, I withdraw that, we are only hours away from the big break up, have a look:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/imagery/single.cgi?image=crefl2_143.A2012210055500-2012210060000.250m.jpg

Rob Dekker

Guys, in the latest Modis pictures today (still incomplete) the clouds are thin and the 'holes' are clearly showing up :
http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?mosaic=Arctic
Concentration just dropped below the threshold it seems.
In fact, the entire area from the Beaufort all the way to the Laptev looks like Swiss cheese. This can't be good...

Espen Olsen

I would rather say looks like cottage cheese.

crandles

Flash melting and area going up!

What does that mean???

Neven

That means that SIA has been reported for the 26th, and the flash melting took place on the 27th. Give it some time, crandles, this has to show up on the graphs in the coming days.

Neven

Here's the SLP image for the last week of July. Blue, blue, purple.

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