Record dominoes 6: IJIS sea ice extent

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come.

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After Uni Bremen extent, Arctic ROOS area, Cryosphere Today sea ice area, DMI sea ice extent and CT Arctic Basin SIA, another big domino has fallen, one of the most popular graphs in recent years, mostly because they have downloadable daily updated data: IJIS sea ice extent.

Here's how the graph I use for ASI updates is looking right now:

The 2012 has plunged below all previous minimums, but I have to add the caveat that this is based on a preliminary data point for August 24th, which will be revised tomorrow. It needs to be revised upwards by 66 thousand square km for this record not to remain standing. Even if this happens, the record will almost certainly be broken tomorrow.

Here are the numbers for the IJIS SIE minimums in the 2005-2012 period:

• 2005: 5.315 million square km
• 2006: 5.781 million square km
• 2007: 4.255 million square km
• 2008: 4.715 million square km
• 2009: 5.250 million square km
• 2010: 4.814 million square km
• 2011: 4.527 million square km
• 2012: 4.189 million square km (and running)

Another caveat is that the IARC-JAXA Information System (IJIS) - an international collaboration between the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) in corporation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) - has switched from the AMSR-E to the WindSat sensor, when AMSR-E stopped functioning last year. WindSat isn't as sophisticated as AMSR-E, so this could cause slight inconsistencies between the yearly numbers.

However, it seems that IJIS is soon switching to ASMR-2, the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2, that is similar to predecessor ASMR-E, but better. All data will be consistent again when that happens. More on that later.

Next up is NSIDC daily sea ice extent or Arctic ROOS sea ice extent...

Comments

[Artful Dodger]

Indeed, the final IJIS SIE for Aug 28 was 3.996 M, a drop of -70.3 K for the day.

The 7-day trailing avg decrease for Aug 28 was 76.6 K.

The preliminary drop between Aug 28-29 was -83.6 K

Scorchio. Gobsmackio. This is 'Drie' ice.

[Seke Rob]

Roman et al, it's for IJIS data reading important to understand, that the last data point is *always* preliminary! The guiding indicator change of the 28th to the 29th is this:

28th 3947500
29th 3863906
Chng -83594 (Preliminary)

This suggests that the final will not be less than 84K as we know from observation that 9 out of 10 the Prelim is adjusted upward [the 28th by 49K]

[Werther]

IJIS continues prelim century breaks and very high loss for the season yesterday.

Matches with actual weather situation. Since yesterday and up to 3 september ECMWF and GFS show a pattern that will hit the weak band of ice north of Svalbard up to Severnaya Zemlya.

Maybe not all that 400K will melt out. It probably doesn’t lead to compaction too, just displace because there’s no blockade on the Bering side.
The patternless (and according to Healy) halved Ocean of Bits and Pieces is near.

[Seke Rob]

Also preliminary, the 4M to 3M [pretty please, climate gods, don't let that happen], has been pegged darker grey on the extent step chart.

http://bit.ly/IJISMD

That orange bar is much to optimistically dyed [is that how you spell that?]. Something like anoxiated blood red would be maybe better fitting.

Noted in the NY piece that had at end

Said Walt Meier, a top scientist at the snow and ice center, “Parts of the Arctic have become like a giant Slushee this time of year.”

That is strong coming from him.

[Seke Rob]

Re Werther | August 29, 2012 at 11:37

The prelim loss [see my post earlier] is -84K... This comparing of upward adjust prior day final to new prelim is not the right signal transmission. No expectation of a century [on my part], as there was not one for the final of the 28th either.

[Werther]

This is part of MODIS tile r03c04, north of Frantsa Yosefa Islands. See the fierce band of clouds rushing in from the south...
Winds are 30-50 miles an hour on 850 hPa.
The wind field shifts slowly to Severnaya Zemlya in the next four days.
That whole sector is getting pounded.
The band reminds me of Isaac...

[Artful Dodger]

Werther, what are the sfc winds? Do you know the central pressure? What sort of radius does the storm have (is that the '1 km MODIS' image)?

Cheers,
Lodger

[Werther]

Hi Lodger,
GFS 2908 12:00 h shows sfc level winds 20-25 knots, south, Svalbard-FY Islands.
Stream on 300 hPa strong south between a deep bulge on 500 hPa level out of Kola Peninsula and the contrary in the Norwegian Sea. Reflects on sfc level in SLP 1032 Novaya zemlya and 984 hPa near Jan Mayen. That last cyclone is heading for N Greenland next three days.
Storm forecast for Frantsa Yosefa 60-70 km/hour fri/Saturday.
Detail MODIS was from 250m, north side app. 1000 km. The influx is a jetstream branc, carrying the clouds and the cyclone in it’s trail. Lot of spin.

[Artful Dodger]

Hi Werther,

That does not sound promising for the sea ice. Strong sustained winds will break thin ice into small chunks which will churn the sfc layer. Big time bottom melt.

This is NOT Dorothy's Arctic.

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS: prelim 3912500 km2
fixed 3996406 km2

[Artful Dodger]

IJIS Preliminary SIE:
The latest value : 3,819,219 km2 (August 30, 2012)

[Espen Olsen]

Dodger,

I got it wrong!

[Wipneus]

IJIS update:

> 08,29,3912500 (from 3863906)
> 08,30,3819219

[Artful Dodger]

Hi Espen.

The 3,912,500 km^2 is the final (revised) SIE for Aug 29, 2012.

The final daily decrease for Aug 28-29 was -83,906 km^2

The preliminary drop from Aug 29-30 is -44,687
km^2

[Artful Dodger]

I'm sure the fine folks in Fairbanks enjoyed that ;^)

[Wipneus]

Currently 2012 is 752k below 2007. If the melt in the coming weeks matches that of 2007 a final minimum of 3.5 will be reached.

But, the rate of melting is exceeding that of 2007. On Sept 1 and 2, 2007 had its first upticks of the late summer.

Don't get used to it, we will be surprised again.

[Espen Olsen]

Area: 2.522 km2 anomaly : - 2.376 km2

[Wipneus]

Just for fun.
AMSR2 concentration pics as animation:
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/9336/am2anim.gif

BTW, there are some faint vein-like lines visible on the ice-pack. I wonder what those are

[Artful Dodger]

Hi Wipneus,

Turn up the contrast on the SIC charts, you'll see those veins are connected areas of low concentration sea ice. Possibly flaw leads, ala Dr. David Barber's study.

Cheers,
Lodger

[Wipneus]

Update:
> 08,30,3877031 (from 3819219)
> 08,31,3801406

[Espen Olsen]

Yes it looks like we are stalling, and that is good, and with Nilas around Healy that confirms it!

[Espen Olsen]

CT: 2.526 km2 anomaly - 2.360 m2

[Artful Dodger]

The latest IJIS value : 3,740,781 km2 (September 1, 2012)

[Wipneus]

Now about -771k below 2007.

If that diff stays unchanged, the minimum will be around 3.48 Mm2

[Kris]

Artful Dodger wrote:

The latest IJIS value : 3,740,781 km2

Indeed, minus 60.000 km² compared to yesterday, what a surprise!

BTW: would you be so kind to reveal this little mistery:

Why is you the others are calling you always "Lodger"?

[Artful Dodger]

Sure, Kris.

http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/slang/artful_dodger

Cheers,
Lodger

[Kris]

Lodger wrote:

Sure, Kris.

So, my face could be as well boat race, even with wide open a north and south?

Fascinating! :-)))

[Seke Rob]

Prelim-Prelim is too -60K (-60,625). For the open Rockbottom files.

The 4 way extent plot (MASIE/DMI/JAXA/NSIDC) updated [MASIE/NSIDC lag 1 day]... the rest of them too naturelmente: http://bit.ly/MASDMI

A page to watch BTW at NSIDC... the Icebridge updates and data now include Antarctic and Greenland: http://nsidc.org/data/news.html

[Artful Dodger]

Looking at the IJIS (prelim) SIE extent overlay for Sep 2nd, it seems that the holes in the pack near the Laptev bite are not closing up. Must not be freeze-up there yet...

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/data/ALPHA/201209/AM2SI20120902IC0_overlay.png

[Artful Dodger]

JAXA has released ver 3 of it's Level 1A dataset for AMSR-E. Now included are an additional 18 days of data spanning 01 June 2002 through 18 June 2002, which were previously unavailable.

This data has not yet appeared in the IJIS public data release, but I'm sure they're very busy over in Fairbanks these days ;^)

JAXA says "An assessment of these data collected during the initial AMSR-E evaluation period indicated that the quality of the observations is high enough to release to AMSR-E data users."

This *may* also imply that at some point in the lifecycle of AMSR2, we may get the data collected during GAC-2012 from Aug 4-8, 2012 just before AMSR2 data went operational on Aug 23nd. The data gap is a similar 19 days.

We live in hope ;^)

Cheers,
Lodger

[Rob Dekker]

Lodger said :

it seems that the holes in the pack near the Laptev bite are not closing up. Must not be freeze-up there yet...

Buoy 2012J (right next to the Laptev bite) seems to support that argument :
http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/2012J.htm
Still bottom-melting rather rigorously, although in the past few days melt is slowing down.

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS: 3710625 km2

[Artful Dodger]

With a final SIE decrease of -38.3 K km^2, 2012 has an 813 K km^2 lead over 2007 as of September 1st.

2007 averaged -24.5 K km^2 loss of SIE from Sep 2 to Sep 15 (the date of the 1st big stall).

So 2007 lost an additional -343 K km^2 before flattening out. If 2012 only matches 2007 for SIE loss to the stall, then 2012 will bottom out around 3.45 M km^2.

Of course, 2012 has so far shown little respect for 2007.

Cheers,
Lodger

[Al Rodger]

The JAXA graph appears far more dramatic than the NSIDC graph but the NSIDC is actually the more dramatic data - 842,000 sq km ahead as of 31st August suggesting a 3.3 million minimum, assuming there is no more divergence.
But divergence continues!

[Espen Olsen]

The IMS is heading south too, wonder what the Goddards and Bastardis will come up with now?

[Artful Dodger]

As mentioned earlier, 2012 has an eeiry number of three's popping up with very high frequency. Strange, that wasn't supposed to happen...

So in honour of the 1970s Arctic Icecap, it's Tony's Greatest Hits (Sock Puppet Edition ;^)

Cheers,
Lodger

[Roman Polach]

North pole webcam 2 shows big area of open water:

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2012/18.jpg

[George Phillies]

September 2 AM early. There is some divergence of the trend on DMI and IJIS namely DMI seems to be leveling out, and IJIS is falling rapidly, no matter what you say about the final pixels. You could say that what is left is almost all quite substantial if thinner and thinner, except for the Laptev area, but it is a bit different that what was seen last month.

[Artful Dodger]

Hi Roman. That's just melt ponds and a pressure ridge. But keep watching the ice! The fact that the melt pond hasn't frozen over indicated the temps are still above zero there (melt ponds are mostly fresh water).
Cheers,
Lodger

[Al Rodger]

George Phillies,
There does seem to be more of a 'corner' on both DMI's 30% Extent & CT's Area.
The CT data allows me to play & I'm getting graphs like this (usually 2 clicks to 'download your attachment') which show that Area back in 2007 & 2011 were effectively flat from last week onwards, but 2012 is still dropping alarmingly. Where it will bottom out is anyone's guess. The cirve of it suggests it won't break the 2 million, but it could still well challenge it.

[anthropocene]

Hi Lodger, Roman:

I think what Roman means is 1st Sept image - here (sorry if link is wrong - first time embedding a link on this site). If you go straight to Webcams it never shows latest image (don't know why) - you have to go to archive to see those. On left hand side is open water - that is not a melt pond imho.

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2012/WEBCAM2/ARCHIVE/npeo_cam2_20120901124421.jpg

[Espen Olsen]

anthropocene,

Yes you right, it is not a meltpond, but the cam is also very near to open sea less than 80 kms according to Bremen!

[Artful Dodger]

Thx, Atp! Oh yeah, that's a lead all right!

Cheers,
Lodger

[Wipneus]

I think I finally managed to upload and link to my animated AMSR2 gif hosted on ArctischePinguin:

https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas/aib/AM2anim.gif?attredirects=0

Can someone confirm whether it works?

[Ghoti Of Lod]

Wipneus:
Yes the animation works.

[Wipneus]

Thanks. For the record I:
- transferred the animation to a Windows PC
- used a program CumuCloud file manager to upload the animation
- found the attredirects thing by trial and luck.

[Artful Dodger]

IJIS SIE:
The latest value : 3,754,844 km2 (September 2, 2012)

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS: 3754844 KM2

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS today 3679844 km2

[Artful Dodger]

No, it's not freeze-up just yet ;^)

A slug of sea ice has moved South in the Greenland sea, spreading extent in that region.

Comparing the SIE extent overlays here is the best way to see the details of daily changes:

IJIS Arctic Sea Ice Monitor

If we get more winds, extent will fall further. If we don't, the pack will freeze in place.

Note that it is far better for the longevity of the pack to consolidate with low extent now, rather than to spread out and melt much more next season. Kind of a 'circle-the-wagons' analogy.

Cheers,
Lodger

[Artful Dodger]

Espen, thanks for posting the Sep 3, 2012 provisional IJIS SIE. :^)

It's down -30.8 K from the Sep 2 provisional number. The death march continues...

Cheers,
Lodger

[Espen Olsen]

Lodger,

Yes I am surprised with size of the drop, 2 days ago I thought we were stalling, but that seems not to be the case. I expect the area to move up and down from now on. And IMS is now were Watts, Goddard and Bastardi dont want it, although I can see Watts is getting softer on the issue, now it is more like a natural unnatural behavior!

[Artful Dodger]

Hi Espen,

I've never visited either site. I've also never jumped off a cliff, although I'm certain that is a safer sport...

... and a more productive use of precious time.

Cheers,
Lodger

[Espen Olsen]

Yes it looks much safer!

[Artful Dodger]

Yup. Did you notice the name of one of the jumpers during the end credits? ;^)

[Espen Olsen]

Lodger,

Yes I did, it is a common name in Norway, I am Norwegian myself!

[Artful Dodger]

I thought that was you, Espen!

Modige menn, ja? Anthony er ikke blant dem, men han vil at du skal hoppe.

Skål,
Lodger

[Espen Olsen]

Lodger,

I dont mind trekking, but jumping / climbing no thanks.
But it is always good to watch the opposition!

[Artful Dodger]

I prefer to watch the ice... ;^)

Cheers,
Lodger

[Espen Olsen]

Lodger,

I might be off for some trekking in Nepal in October, and hopefully studying some glaciers.

[Artful Dodger]

इ हवे अ फ़्रिएन्द व्हो वेंट त्रेक्किंग इन नेपाल इन जनुअरी १९९६. अस फर अस इ क्नोव, हे इस स्टिल ठेरे. बे सफे, मी फ़्रिएन्द.

[FrankD]

The comments on that vid are good value:

Why do they bother with helmets?
To hold the cameras, of course...

[Artful Dodger]

Yeah Frank. Paraphrasing...

GJØR DETTE I NESTE SOMMER, ønsker deg lykke til og håper at vi vil bli knust i isen :D

[Artful Dodger]

Final IJIS SIE for Sep 3, 2012: 3,746,875

The latest value : 3,683,281 km2 (September 4, 2012)

[Seke Rob]

That's prelim-prelim:

Date Prelim
0903 3679844
0904 3683281
Plus 3437 which I can't remember having seen since starting looking at 2012 melt data. The end is Ni, of current melt [bar compaction which has lots of space to get concentration up, to have a [small] fighting chance for 2013.

Then, when AMSR2 data is released back to start of data capture, we'll know how well WindSat was interpreted. Best they do that well after autumn has sunk in... for the 8th decimal crowd crowing that we were misled (regardless of the many other lines of evidence, that not even a seal would feel save to rest on this ice).

[Artful Dodger]

Final IJIS SIE for Sep 4, 2012: 3,726,563
The latest value : 3,628,125 km2 (September 5, 2012)

[Wipneus]

Update:
> 09,03,3746875 (was 3679844)
> 09,04,3683281

AMSR2 animation

[Artful Dodger]

That's a new Chicken Dinner, folks ;^) And a -55.2 K drop for Sep 4/5 prelim/prelim.

[Wipneus]

Do it correctly,

> 09,03,3746875
> 09,04,3726563 (was 3683281)
> 09,05,3628125

Still no stall

[Artful Dodger]

Indeed, Wipneus.

IJIS sea ice extent was inflated for 1-day-only on Sep 4 by a storm near Iceland. Strong winds whipped up ocean waves, and made the sensors go 'Chicken Oriental'.

Of course we know there's no sea ice off Iceland now since SSTs there are 8-10 C.

You can see this 'Chicken Jalfrezi' ice here on the IJIS SIE overlay for Sep 4, 2012 (it winks out again on Sep 5):

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/data/ALPHA/201209/AM2SI20120904IC0_overlay.png

So, the melt season continues apace. And there's a 'Chicken Dipper' storm headed to take a bite out of the Laptev sea ice over the next week.

Cheers, and count yer chickens ;^)
Lodger

[Seke Rob]

Prefer Chicken Vindaloo [mildly hot], though Indian but for the Metropolitans like Rome or Milan is very hard to get... it requires travel here to get at the poppadoms

On extent, one has to keep an eye on the weather and the maps, as the little blib proved. In YTD JAXA history rankings, 2012 is (still) 4th, but gaining fast on 2006 3-5K a day. End of September it could be Rnk-3: http://bit.ly/JAXEXA (for fringe stats). We're on day 8 of below 4M Km^2: http://bit.ly/IJISMD

Healy aloftcam: http://icefloe.net/Aloftcon_Photos/index.php?album=2012&image=20120905-1001.jpeg at 82.33N largely low ice and wave ripples... see no nilas.

Cryosat-2 ... trust they wont come out with anymore of the "let the science community find out what's wrong with this data".

[Seke Rob]

A little nudge more and the YTD extent reduction from max will have passed 75% and 11 million. http://bit.ly/JAXDSM

[Artful Dodger]

Final IJIS SIE for Sep 5, 2012: 3,681,094 km^2
The latest value: 3,614,219 km^2 (September 6, 2012)

[Wipneus]

Update Sep 6:

> 09,05,3681094 (was 3628125)
> 09,06,3614219

Still more than 800k below 2007.

AMSR2 animation

[Espen Olsen]

The ice loss (prelim) passed the 75 % mark of max. for the year.

[Artful Dodger]

That's an IJIS final drop of -45.5 K km^2 for Sep 5, 2012.

The Sep 5/6 prelim/prelim drop is -13.9 K km^2.

[Artful Dodger]

Some interesting stats for the AMSRx era:

Sep 5, 2012 SIE vs. Avg Minimum SIE for two periods:

2007-2010: -1.075 M km^2
2002-2006: -2.031 M km^2

So we're a million sq. km below '07-10, and TWO MILLION below '02-06.

That's right folks, 2012 is the third step on the great ziggurat of ASI collapse.

[Artful Dodger]

Pardon, that should read "the period '07-11" above ;^)

Cheers,
Lodger

[Werther]

Morning all,
So TWO MILLION Lodger, giving room for these SST's.
The 'unknown, unknown...'. Even so, election campaign in the Netherlands on BAU topics.

[Werther]

Continuing the thread on the last phase of SIA/SIE reduction in the Frantsa Yosefa-Severnaya Zemlya sector.
The graph is for summer maximum temps on the Polar GMO on Hayes Island (Ostrov Kheysa). As I wrote on 29 august, GFS showed strong southerly influx for several days. It wasn't a cyclone, but a strong jet-induced stream.
While the ice lobe there weakened considerably during the last days, this graph illustrates the magnitude of this pattern.
Temps over there last week show as the longest range of 'warm' days for this summer.
This is also related to the high SST's in the region.
It will take a lot of time for refreeze conditions to settle over that region.

[Artful Dodger]

Final IJIS SIE for Sep 6, 2012: 3,676,406 km^2
The latest value: 3,601,875 km^2 (September 7, 2012)

[Seke Rob]

Prelim-Prelim 'just' -14K, but final to prelim infers there's still mileage in the melt for the coming days [whilst the cyclone could be the spanner that spreads the outline so thin it falls off the counter, or compaction, or the centrifuge makes it go poof to space". DMI showed on their chart still a firmish drop [no numbers]. The zoom in suggests it's melt biting off pieces still.

(click to enlarge)

At any rate, the 2011 minimum point is 3 days away at 4526875 and 2007 is 16 days out. Do we end up with a million less to 2011? It's a toss.

[Artful Dodger]

That's a good point, Seke Rob. Here's how current IJIS SIE stands vs. previous years in the IJIS data series:

Year: vs. 2012 (as of Sep 6)
2002 -1,970,469
2003 -2,108,282
2004 -2,108,282
2005 -1,638,750
2006 -2,105,313
2007    -578,125
2008 -1,031,407
2009 -1,573,438
2010 -1,137,188
2011    -850,469

[Artful Dodger]

Pardon, scratch '2003' above. Should be:

2003 -2,355,625

That's a doozy.

Cheers,
Lodger

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS: today 3595781 km2

[Artful Dodger]

Final IJIS SIE for Sep 7, 2012: 3,664,531 km^2
The latest value: 3,595,781 km^2 (September 8, 2012)

[Artful Dodger]

(late update for yesterday)
Final IJIS SIE for Sep 8, 2012: 3,674,844 km^2
The latest value: 3593750 km^2 (September 9, 2012)

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS today: 3695313 km2 no prelim, recovery?

[Artful Dodger]

Final IJIS SIE for Sep 9, 2012: 3,695,313 km^2
(No prelim. yet for September 10, 2012)

[Wipneus]

Still a lot of movement to be seen on the AMSR2 ice concentration images.

AMSR2 animation

[Apocalypse4Real]

Wipneus,

I anticipate quite a bit of movement in the IJIS numbers given the impact of lows in the Canadian Arctic, Norwegian Sea, and off SW Greenland - opposite the high pressure over the Laptev and East Siberian Sea for the next few days.

I am looking at the Polar Met website for the surface temp, pressure and wind forecast.

http://polarmet.osu.edu/nwp/animation.php?model=arctic_wrf&run=00&var=plot001

[Artful Dodger]

Don't worry too much about the IJIS SIE for Sep 10, 2012... they're having problems filtering out the storm surface returns again, this time North of Iceland.

Here's the SIE overlay:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/data/ALPHA/201209/AM2SI20120910IC0_overlay.png

In this overlay, you can see a faint outline of Iceland toward the top of the picture, then beneath (towards the N. Pole) there is a large patch of 'phantom sea ice' where SSTs are currently between +4 to +6 C.

Nothing to see, move along, resume shopping local, of course!

Cheers,
Lodger

[Artful Dodger]

The final value : 3,671,406 km2 (September 10, 2012)

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS: 3671406 km2 no prelim

[Wipneus]

-24k, yet still +7k over the Sep 7 minimum of 3664531

AMSR2 animation

[Espen]

IJIS: new record 3591250 KM2

[Wipneus]

... which is a decrease of -80k

Lead over 2007 is still 752k, possibly indicating a minimum of about 3.50 Mm2

[Seke Rob]

With that latest entry [no more prelims, only finals], the IJIS Extent YTD average has been promoted [facetious] from rank 4 to rank 3, moving past 2006.

http://bit.ly/JAXEXA
http://bit.ly/JAXEXM

Next one to be hit is 2007 YTD average, but that's still a little out. The gain of 2012 on that record year is -3K per day, and rising. [Fringe records zone]

The step chart has resumed counting up, skipped from hold on day 10 to day 14 running, since passing the 4 million mark [day #254 of year], i.e. we have that new record low of under 3.6 million square km.

http://bit.ly/IJISMD

(sorry if you get old charts served... Google/Photobucket cache mirroring is slow... if they detect only a small image change, they wont replicate)

[Seke Rob]

Had not registered before, but that brings the YTD melt from maximum to present minimum to 75.12%

http://bit.ly/JAXDSM

[Espen]

Seke,

To avoid those cache problems, try a low tech solution, allocate one of the corners of the chart, a square or a rectangular, end then change background color of these from black to red or something very opposite?