Minimum and MYI

The lowest point has been reached on all sea ice area and extent graphs, and so the melting season has ended. I'll have more on the details later this week, but here's a quick preview of one of the most important features of this melting season, and that's the decimation of multi-year ice (MYI) on the Pacific side of the Arctic.

Here's a nice video that shows how the melting season developed and ended, based on AMSR2 data. It's made by Felicia Brise of the University of Hamburg, and I've taken the liberty to upload it to YouTube:

There's a stunning contrast between the destruction on the Pacific side of the Arctic, and the relative stable and compact situation on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, even though the ice there was thinnest at the start of the melting season. In fact, this region of first-year ice was so large that it even covered the North Pole, perhaps for the first time on record. I even speculated in my 2014/2015 Winter analysis that under the right conditions the North Pole could become ice-free this year.

But the opposite happened, the first-year ice on the Atlantic side was spared (there was also remarkably little transport of ice through Fram Strait) and it was the multi-year ice on the Pacific side that took barrage after barrage of warm, sunny weather. Now that the ice age distribution maps (developed by J. Maslanik and C. Fowler, and currently produced by M. Tschudi of CCAR) have been updated, we can see how things have proceeded since my last blog post on the subject three weeks ago:

As expected, all of the 5+-year old ice on the Pacific side of the Arctic has disappeared in truly spectacular fashion. As there wasn't that much 4-year old ice to begin with, there will be less of the oldest class of ice next year. On the other hand a lot of the 3-year old ice (green) will become 1 year older, and as said, first-year ice (dark blue) got off lightly.

Nevertheless, it seems that part of the rebound in MYI that happened since 2012 has been wiped out (something I speculated about almost two months ago in this guest blog for the Guardian Environment page). We'll know how much exactly when the NSIDC puts up their monthly analysis two weeks from now. Of course, ice age doesn't necessarily tell us how thick the ice is - this isn't our (grand)fathers' Arctic anymore - but it gives us an idea of long-term changes in the Arctic.

Another indicator is sea ice volume, both modelled and observed. To know whether 2015 will dip below rebound years 2013 and 2014, we'll also have to wait a week or two for the PIOMAS model to be updated. Either way, yet another fascinating melting season is now behind us. Thanks for watching.

Comments

[navegante]

That island of MYI should disappear or be reduced to a couple of pixels in next update.

Maybe someone knows: how does surviving 50 cm-thick MYI qualify, now that will grow as top and bottom FYI? Because much of the surviving MYI in the Pacific side may have been reduced to that.

[Werther]

Thanks, Neven.
You did a fine job again, this season!
May it be noticed.

[John Christensen]

Great entry Neven!

Navegante,

The island of MYI will be compacted and thereby increase in thickness, which you can see on DMI has already started:

http://polarportal.dk/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/havisens-udbredelse-og-tykkelse/

The core of the MYI island is now 1-1.5 meters and will probably stay on the ice age distribution charts, although being reduced in ice due to compaction as happens with all ice in time - or melt out next time it strays too far from the Pole..

[John Christensen]

Sorry, too fast:

The core of the MYI island is now 1-1.5 meters thick and will probably stay on the ice age distribution charts as 5+ years ice, although being reduced in area due to compaction as happens with all ice in time.

[EconDemocracySV]

Hello! I'm a long time lurker here (even longer-time follower of climate change, and internet activist since late 1980s) but first time poster..I hope to interest and even "enlist" some of your regulars in a 'small' project...the problem? Climate deniers everywhere. The more specific problem? Needing powerful, short, punchy, "data speaks for itself" ways to post on comments and discussion all over the internet. Other problem? Most powerful things are often graphics BUT neither images nor url's are often allowed..both are often forbidden outright or reported..So...as crazy as this (might, initially) sound..so here's the little project: use PIOMASS data in text form that's concise and powerful

(Quick disclaimer: I've been in contact with Neven by email since 2013 and he's corrected some of the numbers that needed updating, but all errors are MY responsibility if you see any)

Version 1 is just the text. Version 2 is "text-only 'Graphics'" with lines of * symbols.

It needs to be short and punchy so the short version is: Volume data hand-averaged to give decade averages. I simply used the POIMAS data (those Green colored L Hamilton bar graphs for minimum volume) and transcribed year by year numbers, then averaged the decade numbers.

After updates from Neven for 2014, I have what I think are correct numbers for year-by-year which I can post separately (so this post isn't too long) and include the decade-based averages below.

It's a "small" victory but on one right-wing UK (I think) newspaper with lots and lots of Deniers, when I posted this data it had the highest ratio of upvote to downvote on the page of comments I was on, when it came to any pro-science posts..

Below is versions 1..which I had posted with an ironic comment about "so, nothing to worry about, just move along and all is well in the Arctic, is what we're told? Does that look right to you?" or something to that effect, then:

Minimum Arctic sea ice volume,
in thousands of km^3 (cubic kilometers)
From Larry Hamilton with PIOMAS data

1980s average: 14.68

1990s average: 12.84

2000s average: 9.27

5-YEAR AVERAGE (2010-2014) IS: 4.96

I have not yet tried "version 2" with the graphics on Comment sections of newspapers and blogs, to see how they format..they will not format right everywhere, I realize that...but as I said even version 1 with just the numbers typed in, is something I'd like to "arm" others with so please pass it on.

But if Version 2 doesn't format, that's ok. Just the numbers are powerful, especially when so many still claim "no GW in 20 years!" and even non-reactionary, neutral websites, I've seen those claim that the Arctic has "recovered since 2006" which the data for volume show is false.

If you have any suggestions, including when the new data for 2015 comes out, whether to replace "5-YEAR AVERAGE (2010-2014) IS: 4.96" with 2011-2015 or keep those 5 years, and then add a separate line for 2015, or anything else. And I hope some of you will kindly pass on these for copy and paste use - obviously, so we are not accused of spammingthis should be only part of a fuller comment expressed in each person's own personal words and with their own thoughts...just the data, just the 10-year averages and last 5-year average, I hope to "arm" or better maybe, to Equip people with...I know it seems like a losing battle but it's not, and if we give up, it will only become even more biased in favor of anti-science climate deniers, and Ice Volume data for the arctic, I think is one of our most potent tools for waking people up. Thanks in advance for your thoughts, suggestions, and help spreading the word! Harel

[P-maker]

EDSV,

Appreciate your attempt at simplifying the messages. Still a bit to go though, when it comes length.

I would do it like this:

Remaining Arctic Sea Ice (by the end of summer)

Average Cubic Km
1980s...........15
1990s...........13
2000s............9
2010-2014......5
2015.............?
????...............0
Source: PIOMAS – University of Washington

Cheers P

[P-maker]

Sorry,

forgot to include the 1000.

Remaining Arctic Sea Ice (by the end of summer)

Average........Cubic Km (x 1,000)
1980s...........15
1990s...........13
2000s............9
2010-2014......5
2015.............?
????...............0
Source: PIOMAS – University of Washington

[D_C_S]

EconDemocracySV:

1980's average, 1990's average, and 2000's average would be followed by the 6-year average (2010-2015) after the latter is available.

[John Christensen]

Based on PIOMAS the minimum daily volume was reached on Sept. 12 at 5.67 Kkm3 (day 255), after which the ice volume has increased, so should be fine to calculate the 2010-15 average by now.

[P-maker]

That would be something like this:

Remaining Arctic Sea Ice (by the end of summer)

Average........Cubic Km (x 1,000)
1980s...........15
1990s...........13
2000s............9
2010-2015......5

201?............<1

Source: PIOMAS – University of Washington

[EconDemocracySV]

Thank you P-maker, D_C_S and John C.

John C do you have a link for that 2015 number? When I googled I found pages saying "We estimate a monthly mean September sea-ice extent of 5.67" which is km^2 not volume which I'm looking for.

Maybe there is a huge coincidence and the extent in km^2 is equal to the volume in km^3?? (If so, although I realize PIOMAS for 2015 might be revised later as done in the past, might as well compute 2010-2015 right? 5-YEAR AVERAGE (2010-2014) IS: 4.96--->5-yr total = 5*4.96 = 24.8--->adding 5.67--->then divide by 6-->rounds to 5.08 for 2010-2016 **IF** it really is 5.67 for VOLUME..?)

Given the numbers for each year's volume min for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015, "5.67" would not be a crazy number for 2015, but matching the "area" number to nearest 0.01 makes me wonder..

Neven's post "PIOMAS September 2015" does not cite 5.67 directly but trying to decipher "2015 has increased the difference with 2014 from 971 to 1245 km3, and further closed the gap with 2013, from 809 to 401 km3. Depending on what happens this month" but that doesn't seem to suggest a final Volume number for Sept 2015 low is yet out?

While I await replies, let's see if Version 2 works as well as Version 1..

1980: 16.1
1981: 12.6
1982: 13.4
1983: 15.1
1984: 14.5
1985: 14.5
1986: 15.9
1987: 15.2
1988: 14.9
1989: 14.6

Using **** = 1.0 and * = 0.25 (For example, 1987's 15.2 is rounded to
15.25) then the 1980s are:

****************************************************************
**************************************************
******************************************************
************************************************************
**********************************************************
**********************************************************
****************************************************************
*************************************************************
************************************************************
**********************************************************

1990: 13.7
1991: 13.5
1992: 14.9
1993: 12.2
1994: 13.6
1995: 11.2
1996: 13.7
1997: 13.2
1998: 11.5
1999: 10.9

*******************************************************
******************************************************
************************************************************
*************************************************
******************************************************
*********************************************
*******************************************************
*****************************************************
**********************************************
********************************************

2000: 11.0
2001: 12.2
2002: 10.8
2003: 10.2
2004: 9.9
2005: 9.2
2006: 9.0
2007: 6.5
2008: 7.1
2009: 6.8

********************************************
*************************************************
*******************************************
*****************************************
****************************************
*************************************
************************************
**************************
****************************
***************************

2010: 4.6
2011: 4.3
2012: 3.7
2013: 5.4
2014: 6.8

******************
*****************
***************
**********************
***************************

--------RECAP ALL TOGETHER:-------------
(this part can be used to post with "does this look like 'nothing bad is happening' or 'Arctic has recovered since 2006' to you?" type comments on discussion boards and comment sections which do not allow images and do not allow, or those that often censor, URLs...) Here:

****************************************************************
**************************************************
******************************************************
************************************************************
**********************************************************
**********************************************************
****************************************************************
*************************************************************
************************************************************
**********************************************************
*******************************************************
******************************************************
************************************************************
*************************************************
******************************************************
*********************************************
*******************************************************
*****************************************************
**********************************************
********************************************
********************************************
*************************************************
*******************************************
*****************************************
****************************************
*************************************
************************************
**************************
****************************
***************************
******************
*****************
***************
**********************
***************************

FINALLY, THE AVERAGES

(I will definitely think about the comments/suggestions about other units, or other rounding, but this is what I have for now)

1980s average: 14.68
1990s average: 12.84
2000s average: 9.27
5-YEAR AVERAGE (2010-2014) IS: 4.96

WHICH WITH ASTERIX GRAPHICS ARE:

*********************************************************** (1980s)

VERSUS:

*************************************************** (1990s)

VERSUS:

************************************* (2000s)

For 2010-2014, the last half decade?

******************** <-- half-decade

[wayne]

Not so fast with the rebound , as per Jaxa today, a mere +577 km2,
I wont be surprised if ice extent shrinks again because sst and st conditions are very warm and cloudy everywhere in the Arctic

http://cci-reanalyzer.org/DailySummary/

These unknown warm times may necessarily not have the usual
seasonal ice accretion for vast areas in particular with respect to normal sea ice extent. Present unstable weather , triggered by lesser sea ice, fosters more stable open water. The opposite, is good for large Highs creating cloud free mega areas very good for cooling our planet. Present Arctic sea ice in the main pack may not be very consolidated because I have not seen the regular onset of low sun massive anticyclone genesis yet. Surprises are bound to happen. Sea surface temperatures , particularly coming from the main pack is 0 to +1 C in the Central Canadian Archipelago. Beaufort has +4 to +5 C stt's, wow...

[Andy Lee Robinson]

Few graphs and charts have as much impact as this video I produce every year:

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2014
http://youtu.be/nuKVk1gMJDg

I'll have an updated one probably by the 2nd week of next month.

Still disappointed that it doesn't get as many views as it deserves - I put 100s of hours into its production!

[John Christensen]

Hi EDSV,

You can download data from the PIOMAS website, where they post updates to the ice volume (kkm3).

When I downloaded the data, the last day posted was day 258, and as you see below (3rd column) the lowest volume was on day 255.
Also note that 2014 saw the lowest volume on day 261 (2nd column).
Neven provides a monthly analysis of the PIOMAS data, when the graphs have been updated and possibly some data has been revised:

Day 2014 2015
250 7.046 5.746
251 7.011 5.73
252 6.987 5.721
253 6.965 5.702
254 6.934 5.682
255 6.903 5.67
256 6.873 5.689
257 6.837 5.711
258 6.842 5.713
259 6.837
260 6.822
261 6.812
262 6.82
263 6.842
264 6.873
265 6.895
266 6.903
267 6.94
268 6.984
269 7.02

wayne,

I am not sure why you are referring to a 'rebound', but freezing has certainly commenced in the central Arctic with temps lower than -15C around the Pole and DMI 80N temp below normal (1958-2002):

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/weather/arcticweather.uk.php

However, I agree with you that normally is should get colder with a high pressure in place. The current cold happens to be confined to a smaller area of thinner ice (just became 2nd year ice), which grows quicker than would be the case midway between the Pole and Beaufort, where the ice is thicker.

[Jim Hunt]

Hi EDSV,

You may find some difficulty in getting your message across at some of the more obviously "skeptical" venues. For further information on some of my own trials and tribulations in that regard see for example:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/tag/daily-mail/

[Cato Uticensis]

John,

I fully agree with you. Dmi arctic temperatures have been within the norm since several weeks and the current average temp (80N) is about 263 K. Difficult to argue that refreezing has not yet started.

Indeed, DMI temps in the last four weeks have been significantly lower than in 2007 and 2012 and even cooler than the "rebound" years 2013 & 2014.

PIOMAS will tell if this very short temp trend is going to upturn the apple cart and revert the trend started with the extremely warm July, or if the latter will be confirmed and the gap with rebound years further reduced as a consequence.

There is a lot of talking about the effect of El Nino. Honestly I am much more interested in the evolution of AMO, as the effects on arctic ice are potentially much more relevant. We have had a cold summer in the UK and in Scandinavian countries as a consequence of the temp anomaly in NW Atlantic. Let's see what happens with the arctic ice.

Maybe the refreezing season will be even more exciting and surprising than the melting...

[jdallen_wa]

Cato, John & the group;

I'm also going to be watching the refreeze with considerable intensity. Even more than temperatures, I'm thinking we need to watch the moisture import into the arctic during the winter. My sense of last season's refreeze is that moisture imports both during the fall and then well into mid-winter contributed greatly to the "min-max" we saw in February.

Extra moisture was a double whammy; it displaced outgoing re-radiation of heat from the ocean, and dropped heavier than normal snow cover on to the ice.

I'm also wondering this year about the huge inputs of heat dumped into the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort. If it constrains the refreeze across those seas (as well as possibly the Laptev and ESS), that may signal how we can expect next year's melt to progress.

I understand your interest in the AMO, and wondering if a cooler North Atlantic may reduce breakouts like we saw last year. If so, that may prevent the intrusion of warmer, moister air into the Arctic proper.

I think El Nino will still be the biggest wild card; we haven't seen one this powerful since 1997/98 from what I understand, and that time frame marks a transition point in the behavior of the Arctic. This time, unfortunately, there is far greater net heat content in the Arctic Ocean, which makes the system that much more volatile and unpredictable. I find it all very worrisome.

[navegante]

There is at least an extent of 1 million km2 of extra open water in the Arctic than it used to at this time of the year in the late XX century, so expect large temperature spikes while the open ocean refreezes, just as previous years.

[Jim Hunt]

It seems appropriate at this juncture to draw attention to the work of the Arctic Mix team aboard the University of Alaska's research vessel Sikuliaq, currently investigating melting sea ice in the Beaufort Sea:

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=1385

Our instruments are seeing billows of turbulence that look just like a wave breaking on the beach, but much larger. As a result, heat is being mixed up towards the surface, and the remaining ice, at a remarkable rate.
 While we hypothesized this might be happening, we have been genuinely thunderstruck by how incredibly strong the turbulence is below the surface.

This heat is likely playing a substantial role in the melting of the ice that we can see all around us, growing thinner every day, and our job now is to distinguish summer melting from longer-term change.

[Colorado Bob]

'Can explode at anytime': Scientists reveal giant sinkhole to appear in Siberia

Scientists in Siberia are preparing for the formation of a massive new crater, which will be even bigger than an existing one. The researchers believe the sinkhole will be caused by a blast in the permafrost, though they are keeping its location under wraps.

The scientists have located a so-called ‘hillock of swelling,’ which is abnormal in terms of size and form, according to Vladimir Olenchenko, a senior researcher at the Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics in the city of Novosibirsk. He added that the new possible sinkhole is not far from and will be bigger than a massive crater, which was formed last year in Solikamsk.

“We are keeping the coordinates of its location a secret so that this will not lead to a pilgrimage of the scientists and quasi-scientists, as it can explode at anytime,” said Olenchenko.

https://www.rt.com/news/316261-siberia-crater-new-abnormal/

[Susan Anderson]

Andy Lee Robinson, that is one of the finest visuals ever, and sticks in my mind. I know bloggers have used it, at least Joe Romm's ClimateProgress featured it, so perhaps the views are not reflective of its actual traction in the public domain. I will keep it in mind, and particularly look forward to seeing what it looks like once 2015 is factored in so the fake "recovery" meme will be less plausible.

However, if only it would get the kind of attention that Taylor Swift gets for every little thing, I might have more faith in humanity's ability to face and deal with reality.

For anyone missing the reference, here:
Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2014
http://youtu.be/nuKVk1gMJDg

[wayne]

John,

The only source for Arctic High Pressures is Greenland at present.
The presence of continuous Cyclones at about the Pole does the reverse of compaction, and masks the real damage going about, this seems to be the way sea ice will vanish, the Pack will shrink year to year, highly similar to Global Temperature trends, in steps, like you sometimes suggest. I don't see compaction wiping out sea ice completely in one season anymore. If a High remains during summer over Greenland, as what last summer suggests,
the sea ice pack will spread out along with Cyclone action countering any strong compaction especially like summer 2007. Its Arctic Sea Ice last stand.

Amazing projection sketch of mine came through just now, 5 months later than drawn. The power of crayons outmatch the best computer models because the artist had sea ice in mind:

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2015/09/all-long-range-weather-projections-must.html

Those who forget the Arctic have a serious projection precision problem when it comes to long range work, I gave a few examples.

[Andy Lee Robinson]

Thank you Susan, it was actually Joe Romm that approached me to make an image comparing two ice cubes of the maximum and minimum for this article:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/02/14/1594211/death-spiral-bombshell-cryosat-2-confirms-arctic-sea-ice-volume-has-collapsed/

I used povray ( http://www.povray.org ) to create the image from a script, and some time later decided to try to animate it.

Thus evolved a perl script of thousands of lines to create and insert parameters into a script template, and manage distribution of rendering jobs amongst numerous servers using mysql and then collect and collate the results using php and ffmpeg.
I had to write all the sequencing and spline interpolation routines to control movement of the camera and transformations of the objects.
Nightmare!

[Andy Lee Robinson]

I should say comparing 1979's minimum with 2012's minimum!

[John Christensen]

wayne, you said:

"The only source for Arctic High Pressures is Greenland at present.
The presence of continuous Cyclones at about the Pole does the reverse of compaction,and masks the real damage going about, this seems to be the way sea ice will vanish"

We must clearly be reading the charts differently..
If you were correct that 'the presence of continuous Cyclones at about the Pole does the reverse of compaction', then we should be observing:

1. Ice area # stalls, which ice extent # is increased due to spreading of the sea ice
2. The AO index should be predominantly positive (indicating overall tendency of Arctic low pressure)

However, this is not what we are observing, as we see:

1. CT ice area has increased nicely over the past 13 days, while ice extent has increased less significantly:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
This means the ice compactness ratio has increased, not decreased.

2. The AO index has only been positive for the past 5-6 days, and is forecast to turn negative in the next couple of days:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_ensm.shtml

Even the current distribution of highs and lows show LP areas towards Laptev and Chuckchi, while you find HP areas in Kara, ESS, Beaufort, and a bit north of Greenland as well:

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/weather/arcticweather.uk.php

As I mentioned on a different thread, including a lot of the AO index numbers, we cannot (yet) detect in the AO index that e.g. September and October have become more prone to Arctic LP dominance compared to the 80s and 90s.
That could certainly change, but has not done so yet..

[wayne]

John ,

"The AO index has only been positive for the past 5-6 days, and is forecast to turn negative in the next couple of days:"

THe AO area or boundaries are vast well beyond the Arctic, for that reason it has meaning for something else than just the Arctic.

[EconDemocracySV]

Andy, "Few graphs and charts have as much impact as this video I produce every year" I am in fact familiar with your video, have seen it before, and think it's GREAT. Not sure if you saw part of my post saying, my aim is to "arm" (or "equip" to use less violent language) anyone who participates on any website or blog comment section that does not allow videos ,and does not allow URLs (or censors urls often)...that is a significant part of the internet, and in my experience, while it's not the only powerful text-only message, the one I'm suggesting based on PIOMAS 10-year and recent averages, qualifies for the text-only version of "few have more impact than"...at least that's my aim and so far it's gone well...When I can give url, I definitely mention SkS, Neven1, and among vids, yours indeed is among best :-)

Jim Hunt - I'm glad to rub shoulders with others like you are working in parallel..I must add the qualifier however that I am not trying to get "my" message but a general one about AGW, and not for my own use, but the opposite: I'm doing my part to add more tools that ANYONE can use...By tools, I mean format in which to present info, only two new ones, and modest perhaps, but I would argue powerful ones, that's been my experience using them so far. I'll look at your blog. Cheers!

[EconDemocracySV]

John C,

I guess we do have a funny coincidence then!

Here is the full quote about AREA in this June 2015 estimate for this month (Sept 2015) saying: "We estimate a monthly mean September sea-ice extent of 5.67 ± 0.40 million km2"

Here's the url:

http://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2015/june

Can you provide the exact url (and/or step by step directions) for those of us who haven't done it, for the data you posted for actual (not estimated back in June) volume (not area) being 5.67 km^3 (as opposed to area 5.67 km^2) so the rest of us can take a look? Thanks..

"Funny" numerical coincidences, even if what's happening in the Arctic is the opposite of funny...

EXPANDED WITH EXTRA YEAR you gave data for, we have, in 1000's km^3 PIOMAS:

1980s average: 14.68

1990s average: 12.84

2000s average: 9.27

This decade so far:
2010-2015: 5.08

WHICH WITH ASTERIX GRAPHICS ARE:

*********************************************************** (1980s)

VERSUS:

*************************************************** (1990s)

VERSUS:

************************************* (2000s)

And finally, first 6 years of 2010's:

******************** <-- 2010's average to date

I encourage folks to post either the text or star version above on comment boards, in their own words with their own comments. Will it convince all deniers? Not even close. But I've seen it jolt and wake up some folks, so one more powerful tool for waking people up in text-only Comment sections where URLs and images aren't allowed, adding one more impactful way to summarize and awaken folks, can't hurt!

[EconDemocracySV]

Notice worse-than-linear downtrend is visible even in the * graphics..it also debunks a line I found in NON-denialist press, mainstream, that Arctic has "recovered" since 2006...which is sadly very false, as these averages show...