2014 Nares Strait ice bridges

This remains one of my favourite fascinating events in the Arctic. University of Delaware professor in oceanography Andreas Muenchow, the Nares Strait go-to guy, posted the following on his Icy Seas blog:

Formation of Nares Strait Ice Bridges in 2014

Darkness and cold covers North Greenland, Ellesmere Island as well as Nares Strait, the waterway that connects these two inhospitable places. And despite the darkness of the polar night, I can see that three beautiful arches made of ice connect Greenland to Canada. It is possible to walk across water, if the water is frozen. Stuck to land, ice arches or ice bridges shut down ice motion while the ocean under the ice keeps moving. Lets have a peek at how this looked from space yesterday:

The colors above show the temperature that satellite sensors “see” at the surface of the ice. Red is warm, blue is cold, and grey is land, but “warm” here is still below the freezing point of sea water near -2 degrees Celsius, so even the red or “hot” spots are covered by ice. The 300 deep ocean in Nares Strait generally flows from north to south without trouble under the ice, but just behind the fixed arching ice bridges, it sweeps the newly formed thin ice away to the south. The “warm” spots that form to the south of each ice arches have their own stories:

Farthest to the north a massive ice arch spans almost 200 km (150 miles) across. It faces the open Arctic Ocean to the north and it formed a few days before Christmas 4-5 weeks ago. It was still shedding large ice floes from its edge as it tried, and finally succeeded, I think, to find a stable location. Nevertheless, one of its larger pieces of ice moved into Nares Strait on January-3, 2014 where it became stuck on both Greenland and Ellesmere Islands:

The large floe from the edge of the first ice arch becames firmly lodged on both sides of the 30-km wide entrance to Nares Strait on January-4 (not shown), perhaps aided by strong winds from the north with wind speeds exceeding 40 knots (20 m/s). This second northern arch then aided the formation of the third ice arch in the south. All three arches became first visible on January-8:

Read the rest here.

Comments

[Hubert Bułgajewski]

Temperatures in the Arctic are very high for several days. http://arcticicesea.blogspot.com/2014/01/arktyczne-ocieplenie.html These anomalies are increasing. This is worrying because CO2 levels rising all the time. 398 ppm.

[John Christensen]

Thank you for the entry and link Neven!

And yes; the formation and role of the Nares Strait ice arches is interesting, as the establishment and elimination of these arches seem to be quasi-independent of other factors related to Arctic sea ice, while in reverse the arches do impact the volume of outflow of ice during summer through the strait.

[wayne]

Yes Hubert, it is so warm in the Arctic it split coldest winter in two,
creating havoc in Georgia USA also favoring a greater cooling West of the Urals. http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/

[Twemoran]

I think that the opening of Nares Strait may have a much larger effect on ice volume than the width of the opening might indicate. After the 2009 year when Nares remained open all year 2010 had a huge crash in volume. In 2012 with Nares blocked by PII2012 for an extended period 2013's volume was far above expectations.
By draining ice from the bottom of the Lincoln Sea where much of the thickest, oldest ice can accumulate I think that passage through Nares might allow ice to escape that otherwise makes the rounds through the Beaufort Gyre and increases PIOMAS readings for years.
Terry

[Andreas Muenchow]

@Terry: I agree with your sentiment, but the connection may be on longer than annual time scales. The 2006/07 winter season had no icebridge in Nares Strait at either its northern or southern entrance. The 2007/08 winter season only had a southern bridge for less than 60 days while the 2008/09 winter in Nares Strait saw lots of open water and thin ice because a solid northern ice bridge was in place from Jan.-17 through July-7 of 2009. The strange period ended with the 2009/10 season when the northern bridge only formed for less than 30 days. Since the 2010/11 season, we had the "normal" solid northern and southern ice arches in place for well over 150 days in each winter. So, almost free ad almost year-round flux of thick Lincoln Sea ice through Nares Strait took place in 2006/07 and 2009/10 only.

[Hubert Bułgajewski]

In a few days will PIOMAS data. I wonder how many will be. Recent data is a huge increase. Now maybe the difference will decrease because the surface of the ice fell. Interesting.

[Neven]

Indeed, Hubert. I'm also curious to see whether the gap will get any smaller.

[wayne]

Neven , I am equally interested in coming Piomas data, it will bring out the effects of more clouds vs drier air with less cyclonic intrusions. What I see so far, is much warmer air

Little U of Maine rocks:

http://cci-reanalyzer.org/DailySummary/index_ds.php#

Replete of sun rays Arctic has the warmest temperature anomalies in the world. +7 C for 1st February. This is due to thinner sea ice allowing more frequent cyclonic penetrations, always bringing heat with them.

[Mike]

Andreas, how do you create these amazing images? I would like to know if it is possible to get the same level of detail for other parts of the arctic (you know we all have our favorites).

[Pete Williamson]

Interesting the discussion drifted to PIOMASS. If ice bridges can be characterized as dynamical processes, with no clear relation to thermodynamics. And if they contribute to overall ice volume by regulating ice loss through the Nares strait, I think I've read maybe 10% of the exported ice leaves via Nares. And if there formation can be quite variable, I've read the date of their formation and collapse can vary. Then I'm wondering if anybody knows if PIOMAS can take account of these types of dynamical changes in calculating ice volume. Maybe the final impact is quite small and these sorts of variations are contained in the error bars?

[Neven]

I think I've read maybe 10% of the exported ice leaves via Nares.

Yes, I believe this was in a paper by Ron Kwok, describing the contribution of Nares to the 2007 record minimum. But I believe the 10% was for extent, so possibly the percentage for volume could be somewhat higher.

[Colorado Bob]

The ubiquitous shallow icy lakes that dominate Alaska's Arctic coastal plain have undergone a significant change in recent decades.

These lakes, many of which are no more than 3m deep, melt earlier in the season and retain open water conditions for much longer.

And 20 years of satellite radar also now show that far fewer will freeze right through to the bottom in winter.

The results of the space-borne survey are published in The Cryosphere.

What is happening to the lakes is an example of how land ice is following the pattern of diminishing sea ice in the region, say scientists.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26017431

[Colorado Bob]

Greenland's fastest glacier reaches record speeds

"We are now seeing summer speeds more than 4 times what they were in the 1990s on a glacier which at that time was believed to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest, glacier in Greenland," says Ian Joughin, a researcher at the Polar Science Center, University of Washington and lead-author of the study.

In the summer of 2012 the glacier reached a record speed of more than 17 kilometres per year, or over 46 metres per day. These flow rates are unprecedented: they appear to be the fastest ever recorded for any glacier or ice stream in Greenland or Antarctica, the researchers say.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140203101016.htm

[Colorado Bob]

Arctic Heat in Winter — February 2 Temperature Anomaly Hits +13 F For Entire Arctic

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/arctic-heat-in-winter-february-2-temperature-anomaly-hits-13-f-for-entire-arctic/#comment-7533

[Colorado Bob]

Arctic's 'Layer Cake' Atmosphere Blamed for Rapid Warming

The Arctic is leading a race with few winners, warming twice as fast as the rest of the Earth. Loss of snow and ice, which reflect the sun's energy, is usually blamed for the Arctic temperature spike.

But a new study suggests the Arctic's cap of cold, layered air plays a more important role in boosting polar warming than does its shrinking ice and snow cover. A layer of shallow, stagnant air acts like a lid, concentrating heat near the surface, researchers report today (Feb. 2) in the journal Nature Geoscience. [Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

http://www.livescience.com/43045-arctic-warming-linked-stratified-air.html

[Boa05att]

Arctic Warmth in Early February Sees 200,000 Square Kilometers of Sea Ice Lost, Greenland Melt as New Study Finds Massive Glacier Triples its Seaward Velocity

http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/arctic-warmth-in-early-february-sees-200000-square-kilometers-of-sea-ice-lost-greenland-melt-as-new-study-finds-massive-glacier-triples-its-seaward-velocity/#comment-7713

[wayne]

Big news came from NOAA expecting El-Nino to come soon as well as we have written here a while back.
If so, this has huge implications for coming sea ice melt season, its a matter of figuring out the necessary changes in Global Circulations,
whether we will have highly cyclonic Summer Arctic or not. Intuitively there should be more clouds, but the circulation patterns may change from current cyclonic rut, compaction may return, along with much warmer weather, a challenge for 2012 melt is in the cards despite more clouds. http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/

[D_C_S]

Update Piomass Graph

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1_CY.png

[Wipneus]

For those that do not follow the forum.
A bug was discovered (and fixed) in the PIOMAS processing. The new data is marked version 2.1., from their arctic sea ice volume page:

We identified a programming error in a routine that interpolates ice concentration data prior to assimilation. The error only affected data from 2010-2013. These data have been reprocessed and are now available as version 2.1. Ice thickness is generally greater in the Beaufort Chukchi Sea area with the largest differences in thickness during May. Differences in ice volume are up to 11% greater in late spring.

Forum discussion starts here:

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,119.msg19955.html#msg19955

I will update my own graphics later today.