Don't forget the ASIG

In the past few weeks I've been gradually updating the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website, a collection of all imaginable graphs and maps concerning the Arctic and its sea ice out there.

The biggest change has been the inclusion of a new Forecasts page that has maps showing what the forecast is for sea level pressure, temperature (anomaly) and some other things, for the next 7 days. Most of these maps are provided by the excellent and visually appealing Climate Reanalyzer website*.

This new page replaces the SLP Patterns page
that I had introduced to compare 6-day average atmospheric set-ups between years, but was too much work to update. It can still be accessed for anyone who wants to have a look, but I won't be updating it any longer.

I have been updating the ASIG's homepage where all the daily updated graphs and maps are situated. They are all grouped together according to category on the right hand side: sea ice concentration, sea ice extent & area, sea surface temperature, surface air temperature, sea level pressure & jet stream, buoys & sea ice drift, sea ice thickness, volume & age, Greenland ice, snow cover and miscellaneous.

On the Regional Graphs page I've added two excellent overviews, produced by the prolific Wipneus, that show regional graphs in one clear overview, extent and area, comparing current trend lines with those of 2012, 2013 and 2014, based on high resolution University of Hamburg data. Like the forecasts all together on one page, this is another huge time saver.

I've added the latest North Pole webcam images to the Webcams page.

Finally, I have updated the Concentration Maps page which makes it easy to compare the current sea ice concentration map produced by the University of Bremen to those of other years. As I don't want to show more than 8 maps, I had to decide which melting season not to show, and opted for 2009.

I hope you find the ASIG useful. For me it's the place where my day starts and ends, as it's all there.

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* Recently the people behind the Climate Reanalyzer website have added a daily reanalysis maps page where you can go back in time and see what the weather was like in the Arctic (various parameters) all the way back to 1979. Yet another awesome feature on perhaps the best weather site out there.

Comments

[Jim Hunt]

Thanks for all your hard work on the ASIG Neven!

Just a reminder that for the last few weeks I've been updating the Great White Con resources section :)

This part is particularly interesting just at the moment:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/beaufort-sea-ice-graphs/

By way of example:

Click the image for a larger version, including the Chukchi Sea also.

[Neven]

That's right, Jim. I had forgotten you have a great segment on your blog with images and animations. I'll put a link on the ASIG to that.

[Bill Fothergill]

Just got back from a low-tech holiday in France - no phone, no computer and a diet that consisted almost entirely of bread, cheese, cakes, porridge, beer and wine. (Nothing like a healthy diet, eh?)

Looking at the updated ASIG page (nice one, Neven) I see that the Arctic Data Archive System VISHOP portal (the IJIS/JAXA replacement) has been replaced by a bloody Twitter feed. Does anyone have the URL enabling access to their sea ice extent chart? The interactive features were amongst the best I have seen, and it would be a pity if it is no longer available.

Given that there was some discussion on an earlier thread concerning physical processes pertaining to sea ice, might it also be an idea to include on the ASIG page some links to resources other than graphs or datasets?

I was thinking in particular of something like the NSIDC's "All About Sea Ice" portal, located at...
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/index.html

To many of the people who comment regularly here, this would be pretty elementary stuff, but it would provide a sort of "Sea Ice 101" for newcomers.

For example, the concept of Freezing Degree Days as a rough proxy metric indicating likely ice growth is something that anybody commenting here should be aware of. I happen to know that the relevant section (Thermodynamics) was updated about 4 years ago, as it was me that provided the NSIDC with an appropriate errata list.

Cheers Bill F

[Jim Hunt]

Welcome back to Blighty Bill!

VISHOP is down. Back RSN apparently:

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1112.msg52160.html#msg52160

[Jim Hunt]

Bill/Neven,

"Might it also be an idea to include on the ASIG page some links to resources other than graphs or datasets?"

Might be an idea for GWC also. What does the team think should be on the list?

In the meantime I'll get even busier......

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-explanations/

[Dean B]

Forgive what might be a stupid question, but does anyone think its strange that the surface air temperature anomaly in the forcasts maps above have the northern part of Alaska and Canada at 20C above normal for the next 7 days, and that although the artic ice next to those bits are high, there only about 10c higher than normal. So does that mean that their is no snow/ice on those bits of Canada and Alaska, and if so is that normal for this time of the year.

[Seke Rob]

Dean B, visit Rutgers global snow lab at http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/ Yes, Alaska and NW Canada are substantially snow free.

[Chris Reynolds]

Dean,

The latest snow cover is from Rutgers.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_vis.php?ui_year=2013&ui_week=18&ui_set=0

But that only takes us up to early May. At that time there was snow there.

However there is MODIS.
https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/?p=arctic&l=MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,Coastlines&t=2015-05-17&v=-6701056,-3824582.481450516,3784704,1631289.5185494842

And that does indeed show a lot of snow free land in the region of greatest warming as you suspect.

[Neven]

And here's the anomaly (red):

Unfortunately I can't link to this image on the ASIG Daily Graphs page, but there are other snow cover maps there that show the same (you have to scroll down a bit to the Snow Cover segment.

[navegante]

Dean, these forecasts maps are all for O:00 GMT which makes 3pm in Alaska or so, for each and all maps. Those mountains look lit at +20C but they only so for a few hours (precisely afternoon).
Reason why temps along Eurasian coast also zero or negative in all maps.
You have to mentally factor out the daily cycle, or go to the reanalyzer www to see the 3-hourly forecasts.

[D_C_S]

Regarding temperatures in arctic Canada, Inuvik just hit 26.9 C / 80.4 F (a new monthly record all-time hottest temperature there during May according to the Wikipedia page for Inuvik), and Tuktoyaktuk just hit 21.7 C / 71.1 F (a new monthly record all-time hottest temperature there during May according to the Wikipedia page for Tuktoyaktuk).

[Jim Hunt]

Neven - Thanks very much for the link to GWC. Here's my response:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/about/#comment-209506

It looks suspiciously as though you were one of the very first people ever to go swimming in Santa's Secret Summer Swimming Pool!