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

[Seke Rob]

That's an excellent idea, Espen. They auto-upload whenever the smartftp program detects a timestamp mod change (once a day normally for the dailies). In Excel you can set a conditional format, so I'll have it look at odd and even days and pick up some alternating patterns. Suspect it looks at some kind of percent of total image. Some are quick to proliferate and show a fresh image [the simple], some take long such as the step chart. Let me work on this to see if this tips them over so to speak.

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS:
September 12 2012 3585781 km2

[Espen Olsen]

New low by the way!

[Seke Rob]

Think I'll be making a step chart for the 5 and 4 million for IJIS/JAXA [just one data point on latter, for the impressionable], combined with the 4M step history for CT. New era territory. You'll find it on the ATCC site when ready :D

[Seke Rob]

That was -5.4K pre-revision for the 12th BTW. The 11th was revised up by 12K from 3591250 to 3603281

[Phil]

Just wondering why IJIS now seems to be running a day behind, it normally updates in the morning UT?

[Seke Rob]

Phil, there's no first pass prelim published since September 9. Too iffy I suppose in this transitional phase of hovering between melt and freeze at the same time in different portions of the Arctic.

[Phil]

Thank you

[Espen Olsen]

IJIS: September 13 2012:3569688 km2 new low

[Wipneus]

... -16k.

754k below 2007, still suggesting a low of about 3.5 Mm2

Updated AMSR2 animation

[Seke Rob]

Wipneus/Espen Olsen, do you have some page change scanner running for the various indices? I know how to get FF set to refresh app tabs periodically, but it gives no notification of change. What I do now is simply watch for you posting updates in the various domino threads. Thanks for this service [:thumbs up smiley]

IJIS Now -684K below the 2007 record minimum of 4.25 million km square.

BTW, the chart refresh works a little better with alternating the chart moniker background corner between red and orange. Maybe not different enough in RGB code for the caches to react... more experimenting.

[Wipneus]

IJIS updates are almost always at the same time, today:
Last-Modified: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 08:55:48 GMT

Same for NSIDC, about 13:48 GMT

CT updates irregulary. My "scanner" is a command in a terminal like:

while true; do echo -n 'x'; wget -t 0 -N -S "http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.anom.1979-2008";sleep 30;done

[Espen]

IJIS: September 14 2012 3541719 km2 new low

[Timothy Chase]

3585781,3569688,3541719... Two more days like that and IJIS Extent will cross the 3.5.

I don't think I will stay up any longer for CT SIA. Besides, it's already passed 2.25, but 2.0 looks out of reach.

[Seke Rob]

Day 17 of IJIS being below 4 Million square. September average to date: 3541719 km^2

Don't know if it was Stroeve or Strove being in situ [saw both names here on this blog], but let's hope the ASMR2 is matching their observational data closely, otherwise there will be another round of sat data sets being rejected in Aint True lalaland.

Staying up for this... Not advisable, Tim. It's going... We could now kind of set the global "unsave" temp rise for the Arctic at below 1C from pre-industrial. Outlook: Piles of extra PJs not being deflected next year over a longer spring/summer/autumn interval. Hope it snows well in the northern land sectors to compensate a little in Albedo. The acreage at least can reach 51 million [Rutgers snow cover record, February 1978]

[Artful Dodger]

Snow change is a double hit for the Arctic system.

Open ocean provides more water vapour. Increased Winter snow provides more effective insulation of land and sea ice, which leads to less refreeze of permafrost and thinner sea ice.

Rapid / early Spring snow melt from increased regional temps leads to increased heat absorption due to the albedo flip, causing further loss of permafrost and sea ice.

It's basically the Saturday morning Apocalypse. But our Societal attention span is like a six year old's.

Bam-Bam.

[Seke Rob]

It's a knife cutting on 2 sides, but if this drifts towards some serious solar ray deflection, for early year increased albedo, some freezing the cahunas at lower than 70N, somewhere between 45N-55N belt. We cant stop the water vapor... the heat is in, so what is than the ideal optimal weather [within the possibles] to have some breaks on, that as I commented before would hit DC and London hard [The Inhofe666 lobby would of course love it]?

[Espen]

IJIS: September 15 2012 3475781 km2 new low and Lombardis short term forecast 10 days ago went down the drain like so many of his other "studies".

[Seke Rob]

Sobbing and crying ... where's the prozac... this -65,938 km^2 1 day reduction, mid September. Another -42.5K and it's a round -11M km^2 melt for 2012, about 1.25M ahead of 2007, in extent.

[Seke Rob]

to complete the line: ... in extent "reduction" in 1 year.

[Werther]

Crushing into winter…

During the last two days, southern winds have pushed the ice boundary back to the Pole for a mean 10 km on a front of about 1000 km. The playground is Svalbard-Severnaya Zemlya.
While most of the action seemed concentrated on the Bering side this summer, conditions have remained highly suitable for losses at the Atlantic side. Any ice pushed out through this side must have melted out immediately, so that nothing much seemed to happen on the position of the boundary there.

Even so, during July-August it was pushed back to where the line of high concentration was September ’11.

Now that winds have changed direction, according to the general pressure configuration, the high melt potential in this sector has started a late season but fierce impact on the remaining sheet.

We have two witness crews on site. On the Arctic Sunrise, it is struggling to find floes suitable for scientific investigations. Polarstern is in the Laptev Bite, reporting on the biological impact of rapid sea ice loss and change. Polarstern is briefly on course to Norway, according to their weekly report, because of injuries suffered by some crew members.

While no report overstates what is seen into general alarm, it is clear between the lines that these experienced scientists are constantly in awe of the change they find.

Whether it is change in the metabolism and species of algae and zooplankton (Polarstern) or constant photographing and measuring of shattered floes to eventually calibrate satellite data (Arctic Sunrise), these results seem to form the basis of the epitaph of what only a couple of years ago was ‘The frozen North’.

[Artful Dodger]

The Laptev 'Bite' is closing. This led to a large one-day increase in IJIS SIE on Sep 17.

We will see this reflected in the numbers for Sep 17 and 18, due to the IJIS 2-day data averaging procedure.

[Chris Biscan]

where are you getting data for the 16th and 17th?

I haven't seen any updates past the 15th?

[Twemoran]

Chris

I'm guessing the maps at

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e

Terry

[Chris Biscan]

Thanks Terry, yeah the IJIS stuff is showing ice starting to form. If you don't know I am frivolousz21 at americanwx.

I thought for a moment he was referring to new numerical data.

The Healy is showing colder temps finally with dark skies reaching down to 20f

[Twemoran]

yea Friv I knew who you were,just kept with the name you were using.

The storm on Beaufort is the one I'm watching - big winds, big seas & warm surface waters getting stirred under could slow the freeze-up.

Terry

[Chris Biscan]

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w109/frivolousz21/00zeurohourly850mbTempAnomalyNA144.gif?t=1347952917

This might hurt it too Terry.

The trade off for chilly September air is not worth these kind of heat intrusions up North

[Seke Rob]

Thank you, thank you, ported the systems image with a predicted US Eastern winter snow story to a denialati thread. I love deep negative temp anomalies over the Eastern US, Washington DC region (sorry if you live there)

[Espen]

IJIS:

September 16 2012 3489063 km2

[Espen]

September 17 2012 3537188 km2

[Espen]

Refreezing time!

[Espen]

IJIS: The official low will the probably be September 16 2012 with 3489063 km2, this development could also be seen on the Bremen map.

[Seke Rob]

We 8had* of course the 3475781 of the 15th, but that was upped to 3518594... +44K. The 16th [day 259], is close to the last 5 year average of 257.6, from a 2007-2011 range of 252-267:

2007 - 267
2008 - 252
2009 - 256
2010 - 261
2011 - 252

Whoever calls this, the knights would say it's Ni. Considering how far the extent outer line had retreated, think it beyond dramatic that regrowth had not assumed earlier...

http://bit.ly/IJISMD

[Account Deleted]

I am not convinced yet with the weather forecast of cyclones. not that much new on bremen Amsr map and MASIE is at a new low again having bounced up and down for the last week or so.

[Espen]

IJIS: September 18 2012 3554219 km2

[Espen]

IJIS: (revised)
September 16: 3489063 km2

September 17: 3505156 km2

[Wipneus]

09,15,3520781
09,16,3489063
09,17,3505156
09,18,3554219

A very late corrections for Sep 15 (+2k), and rare downward for Sep 17 (-32k).

[Espen]

Seke Rob,

IJIS:

Is it fair to use the minimum at 3475781 km2 after it was revised up?
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q210/Sekerob/Climate/ArcticSIEDaysMillionStepMelts.png

[Seke Rob]

Doubt you're looking at a fresh cached copy, Espen, likely it has a print date, right bottom of the 17th or earlier. Mine shows 3489063 as the momentary lowest, 16.sep.2012 aka day 259, and in orange/red to indicate it's not locked in, chart dated 18th (last data point).

[Apocalypse4Real]

Chris and twemoran,

The heat pumping into the Beaufort seems set to continue as new SLP's form in the warm SST of the North Pacific and head north across Alaska. A storm with a SLP of 978 mb is forecasted to be emerging into the Beaufort on Thursday, bringing 16C temps all the way to the coast.

At the same time a 975 mb SLP forms over the Labrador Sea and moves across southern Greenland with 14C temps.

By Friday, the SLP over Norway will deepen and move over the Franz Joseph Islands,with a 977 mb SLP.

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

We may have hit the minimums and have begun refreezing, but the wind and wave motion will continue to have an impact.

See the CPC NA forecast as well:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/

[Werther]

A4R, all these intermittent pressure differences show up on GFS and ECMWF. What effect they're exactly going to have isn't yet clear to me. Both models show accumulation of cold on 850Mb. So, refreeze, but how fast given all the turbulency.
Wayne has some intriguing new info on his EH2R blog on the high over the Pole, where Polarstern is examining.

[Espen]

IJIS: September 19 2012 3674063 km2

September 16 2012 continues to be the lowest extend measured at 3489063 km2

[Seke Rob]

Espen, when looking at the below 4 way extent chart, think we can assume that the lowest point has been passed. One commenter observer that the extent has never returned from this level of upwards at end of melt, to rebound to a lower point.

http://bit.ly/MASDMI

Sorry, Photobucket is again having image serving issues... starts to get really long in the tooth. Image will appear later I'm sure [well, start to wonder now].

[Seke Rob]

The ReCAPTHA appropriate required "contag surcharge", ;)

[Espen]

Yes it funny, but actually I could all ready see that refreezing point on the Bremen Map from September 15, as I did report then, so the Bremen Map is not that bad as some may be thinking.

[Kris]

Espen wrote,

but actually I could all ready see

Apparently your eyes are so much better than anyobe else's.

[Espen]

Kris,

I just learned to read that map, over some years now!

[Espen]

IJIS September 20 2012: 3780000 km2

[Seke Rob]

Hilarious, the double/triple recovery is on it's way... see the lizards rolling out their forked tongues :D

BTW, the Extent step chart has now been locked in for 2012, a fat day 259 in black showing.

[Artful Dodger]

As predicted, once the Laptev bite skinned over, SIE growth has stalled: down -15.3 K km² for Sep 20/21.

The latest value : 3,764,688 km2 (September 21, 2012)

[Espen]

IJIS September 22 2012: 3776094 km2

[Espen]

It will be interesting to watch when the refreeze of 2012 will pass the previous IJIS record set on September 24 2007 at 4254531 km2, will be this month or early October?

[Espen]

IJIS September 23 2012 3822500 km2

[Espen]

IJIS September 24 2012 3872188 km2

[Espen]

This was the date the former low of IJIS at 4254531 km was set and we still have 382343 km2 to go before we pass the that threshold at this average "speed" it could +/- October 2nd 2012.

[Artful Dodger]

Hi Espen,

That would be ~39 days below the 2007 min.

Wowsers!
Lodger

[Espen]

IJIS September 25 2012: 3867969 km2 up

still 3867762 km2 less than the low of 2007

average refreeze from low: 42100 km2 / day

[Espen]

Correction:
September 25 down from September 24 -4.219 km2

[Espen]

Refreeze speed from low:

Daily average 2012: 42.100 km2

at this "speed" we will reach the low of 2007 on October 4 2012.

[Espen]

IJIS September 26 2012: 3881875 km2

Refreeze from low: 392.812 km (Sept. 16th)

Average daily refreeze: 39281 km2

[Espen]

IJIS September 27 2012:3918594km2

Refreeze from low: 470.531km2 (Sept.16 th)

Average daily refreeze: 42.775 km2

Estimated crossing of previous low 2007: October 5th 2012

[Espen]

IJIS: The refreeze since low, is 30% slower than 2007 for the same time period (days after low), maybe that is indicating a new refreeze era?

[Espen]

IJIS Correction:

Refreeze since low 429.531 km2 September 16th

[Jim Williams]

Espen: "IJIS: The refreeze since low, is 30% slower than 2007 for the same time period (days after low), maybe that is indicating a new refreeze era?"

That's very interesting. Do we have similar changes in the other indices?

[Espen]

Jim,

I have not checked it out, but 2011 was very slow too by eye balling!

[Jim Williams]

Well, we're all (or at least most of us) sitting on the edge of our seats looking for the first hard signs of the expected switch. They're as likely to happen in the Fall as any other time of year.....

A really slow freeze would tend to equal a very thin freeze.

[Espen]

Jim,

Yes I am curious to watch how the refreeze season 2012 - 13 develops, and especially how weather patterns reacts further down south.

[Espen]

IJIS,

September 28 2012 3970781 km2

Plus 481718 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16 th

Average refreeze pr. day 40.143 km2 2012 since low

[Espen]

IJIS:

September 29 2012: 4037500 km2

Plus 548.437 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16th

Average refreeze pr. day 42.188 km2 since low

Cross point 2007 at this refreeze "speed" October 4th 2012.

[Chris Biscan]

I haven't been paying close attention at the models, but we might see another period where gains slow back down to the 25-45K per day range for 4-5 days based on tonight's models.

Cold air continues to build but is not widespread and get's bottle-necked over the icepack and towards the Laptev sector. Which will take a bit to cool down even with -15C 850s before ice can explode in growth there.

Large blocking HP's let a lot of cold build south while two areas of heat build into the arctic.

On top of that winds turn towards a compacting regime on both sides excluding the Laptev the 3-4 day. Which leads to the bottleneck.

2007 gains 721,000km2 or so on jaxa the next 10 days.

I honestly can't say how this will go, this is much harder to predict than melting patterns, but giving my best educated guess not prediction, more like guess because of how long chances of being right are, if these models currently prove to be 75% correct or better on what they show for ice forming conditions the next 10 days.

I'd guess that 2012 could gain 300-500K by October 9th.

This would put 2012 around 4.33 to 4.53 mil or 700-900K below 2007 for last on Jaxa.

[Lord Soth]

With IJIS finally crossing the 4M km^2, we had more than a month (32 days) below 4M. Unbelieveable. And it has been 37 days below the previous record.

I remember back in the 70's when our ice breakers had to get out of the Arctic by the third week of Septeber, to avoid being stuck for the winter. Now it's the end of September and Sail boats could easily sail the Northern Route of the North West Passage, with only a few strips of 1/10 ice.

http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS56CT/20120924180000_WIS56CT_0006670631.gif

[Espen]

IJIS:

September 29 2012: 4079844 km2

Plus 590.781 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16th

Average refreeze pr. day 42.199 km2 since low

Cross point 2007 at this refreeze "speed" October 4th 2012.

[Seke Rob]

That number closed September at an IJIS average of 3.703m. In simple graphical representation the now 11 years of September data plotted out...

Yes, nothing new, an amazing recovery [like the European Ryder Cup team had last Sunday]... nothing to do with warming of the globe... but all special passing of winds and oceanic oscillation. One just wonders, how there can be 5% more vapor in the air on world average, without global warming, when 7% = 1C temperature rise. Heat-less vapor adding... I'd like to know the trick that nature is playing on physics.

NB, To mention, September 2002 has a datagap which occurred after the minimum. As-is or interpolated, gave the near identical average, too small to mention, really... just in case.

P.S. Updating the plot for SORCE TSI, this indicates a decline on 6 months moving average... the Sun could have peaked before the melt season started, it even appeared above the 75N latitude horizon. Maybe that was the cause... except that possible peak was lower than the one of cycle 23, lowest in fact since the 1950s when mean solar output started dropping. So how could it have been the sun, ~6 minutes light travel from Earth? Just asking the obvious ;P

[Timothy Chase]

Seke Rob wrote:

Yes, nothing new, an amazing recovery [like the European Ryder Cup team had last Sunday]... nothing to do with warming of the globe... but all special passing of winds and oceanic oscillation. One just wonders, how there can be 5% more vapor in the air on world average, without global warming, when 7% = 1C temperature rise. Heat-less vapor adding... I'd like to know the trick that nature is playing on physics.

The amount of water vapor varies a great deal from place to place and one time to another depending upon the daily temperature, relative humidity, altitude, precipitation. So obviously you are measuring it wrong. Can't expect to do any better with that than with temperature. Poleward migration of the animals? Their confused. Plants blooming earlier in the year? Probably something that the government is spraying. Larson A and B ice shelves in Antarctica? Its my understanding explosives were used.

Its all pretty straightforward when you put your mind to it.

[Seke Rob]

Putting the "open" mind to it, that was so open, it fell out ;o)

[Jim Williams]

Nice to know that ice is an explosive Timothy.

[crandles]

That albedo feedback effect is dynamite. :( ;o)

[Espen]

IJIS:

October 1st 2012: 4141094 km2

Plus 652.031 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16th

Average refreeze pr. day 43.469 km2 since low

Cross point 2007 at this refreeze "speed" October 4th 2012.

Refreeze 2007 Sep. 24 - Oct. 1st = 417.818 km2

Refreeze 2012 Sep. 24 - Oct. 1st = 268.906
35 % less than 2007

[Espen]

IJIS:

October 1st 2012: 4166563 km2

Plus 677.500 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16th

Average refreeze pr. day 42.344 km2 since low

Cross point 2007 at this refreeze "speed" October 4th 2012.

Refreeze 2007 Sep. 24 - Oct. 2nd = 483.282 km2

Refreeze 2012 Sep. 24 - Oct. 2nd = 294.375 km2
or 39 % less than 2007

[Espen]

IJIS:

October 3rd 2012: 4173594 km2

Plus 684.531 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16th

Average refreeze pr. day 40.267 km2 since low

Cross point 2007 at this refreeze "speed" October 5th 2012.

Refreeze 2007 Sep. 24 - Oct. 3rd = 518.750 km2

Refreeze 2012 Sep. 24 - Oct. 3rd = 301.406 km2
or 42 % less than 2007

[Espen]

IJIS:
On October 5th 2012 the refreeze passed the previous record from 2007.

October 5th 2012: 4256875 km2

Plus 767.812 km2 since refreeze Sept. 16th

Average refreeze pr. day 40.411 km2 since low

[Espen]

IJIS:

October 6 2012:

4377344 km2

888.281 km2 since refreeze

44.414 average refreeze / day

[Espen]

IJIS:
October 6 2012
First refreeze century 120.469 km2 since September 16 th. 2012.

[Seke Rob]

A slightly enhanced monthly anomaly chart for JAXA, adding the percent left of maximum. It was 25% residual for September 2012, off from maximum extent month, which I've assumed to always be March.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q210/Sekerob/Climate/IJIS_Month_September.png

Amazingly, for October 10, MASIE reports 1.048 Million less sea ice than 2011, same day. Just a number, not reflected on why this so much varies from other extent compilers.