ASI 2016 update 3: crunch time

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Because of issues with data based on the SSMIS sensor aboard DMSP satellites, I mainly focus on higher-resolution AMSR2 data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), as reported on the Arctic Data archive System website. I also look at other things like regional sea ice area, compactness, temperature and weather forecasts, anything of particular interest.

The animation on the right consists of NSIDC
sea ice concentration maps, one for each ASI update.

Check out the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website (ASIG)
for daily updated graphs, maps, live webcam images, and
the Arctic Sea Ice Forum (ASIF) for detailed discussions.

June 29th 2016

The run-up to this melting season was really special, with an unprecedentedly warm winter season and early opening of the Beaufort Sea. Sea ice extent and area numbers went extremely low for the time of year, and sea ice volume reached the depths it was at before the 2013-2015 post-record rebound. But events in the Arctic don't behave like a straight arrow. Not in the short term, at least.

Weather conditions switched around the start of this month (see previous update) and prevented a large-scale soaking up of solar radiation through leads and melt ponds that would've increased the chances of a new record low September minimum even more. The lack of melting momentum has in fact decreased the chances to the point that I'd bet against it. If you want more details, read these two posts, or this blog post by Chris Reynolds that is hot off the press.

Mind you, this is not a melting season like 2013 or 2014 where persistent cloudiness and low temperatures caused relatively high September minimums (compared to top 3 years like 2007, 2011 and 2012, of course; they were well below the long-term average). 2016 still has many aspects going for it, like all that open water in the Beaufort Sea, low volume and snow cover that vanished at record speed. But it will take more to beat 2012, or 2007 and 2011 for that matter.

So, that's the question I will focus on in weeks to come: Can 2016 still make the top 3?

Sea ice extent (SIE)

2016 is no longer number 1 on the JAXA SIE graph:2016 went lowest on March 28th and stayed lowest all through April and May, a full three months. This tells us something about how amazing the melting season has been so far. But after a low daily average of just 48K this month (2010 and 2012 had 77K and 78K respectively) and zero century breaks so far, the trend line has re-joined the pack.

Compactness (CAJAX)

By dividing sea ice area numbers with sea ice extent numbers we get an idea of how compact the ice pack is. Are the ice floes huddled together, or is the ice pack riddled with leads and melt ponds? The lower the percentage is, the more 'holes' there are within the pack (for a more thorough explanation on compactness read the Melting momentum part 2 blog post).

I use Cryosphere Today sea ice area data (as calculated by Wipneus over on the forum) and divide them by JAXA SIE data, resulting in the CAJAX graph:

2016 is smack in the middle of the pack of trend lines, indicating this is an average melting season (for now).

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No regional graphs in this update. I'll be using them for a separate blog post to keep this one shorter.

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Weather conditions

Here's the animation of Danish Meteorological Institute SLP images showing the distribution of atmospheric pressure during the past two weeks:

Blue and green, representing low pressure, have been dominating the Arctic. For a very short period 973 hPa was reached last week, which is quite low, but the cyclone was too short-lived to do any real damage (like we saw in August 2012). This low pressure dominance is the sole reason that extent decrease has slowed down and melting momentum is (below) average. It isn't very low though and has dispersed the ice pack somewhat, which may play a role later on.

If you want extent to go down fast, you want open skies and compacting winds, in other words high pressure, preferably somewhere between the Central Arctic and the American coast. Let's see if the ECMWF weather forecast model has any of that in store for the coming 6 days (click for a larger version, and go to the ASIG Forecasts page for daily forecasts):

Low pressure remains dominant over the Central Arctic, but high pressure is getting a firmer grip on the American side of the Arctic. This set-up may not be ideal for rapid decreases in sea ice extent, but could have quite a negative effect on the thicker ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (Northwest Passage central route opening up?) and Beaufort Sea where the multi-year ice floes are in a rout.

Unlike the first few months of this year and the start of melting season, temperatures haven't been out of the ordinary during the past few weeks, just slightly above average. Here's an animation showing the GFS weather model temperature anomaly forecast maps for the coming week, as provided by  Climate Reanalyzer:

There is one more trick up 2016's sleeve I forgot to mention though, and that's sea surface temperatures. Below you can see current SST anomalies in the Arctic, according to DMI, followed by a comparison to the situation on July 1st 2012, June 28th 2014 and July 7th 2015:

This year is looking almost as hot as 2012 - much hotter near the North Pacific - with a few more days to go until July 1st. Comparable too to 2015, but hotter in the North Atlantic, with more than a week left to go until July 7th.

This is another aspect that speaks in favour of 2016 still going low this year. But SSTs alone won't suffice.

Conclusion

It's difficult to assess where 2016 stands exactly at the moment. Conventional wisdom will say that current weather conditions and lack of melting momentum are precluding a new record low September minimum, and I tend to agree, based on what I have learned over the past few years. I expect 2016 to be overtaken by 2012 on the JAXA SIE graph in the coming two weeks, and then when August comes 2012 will be out of reach.

However, Arctic sea ice wouldn't be such an interesting phenomenon to watch if it didn't behave as unexpected as it often does. As said, certain aspects of this melting season suggest more could be going on than meets the eye. But it will take a July like last year (see here), with plenty of open skies and record high temperatures, for this year to go really low and end up in the top 3. 2015 almost managed to do that, despite a relatively high amount of volume at the start of the melting season and a serious lack of melting momentum during May and June.

It's crunch time, but no signs of open skies and high temps as of yet.

Comments

[jdallen_wa]

Good post, Neven.

Following weather, I'm in agreement, beating 2012 is less probable than it was a month ago.

That said, I wish I could quantify it, but It seems like we're seeing more rain over the pack than in the past.

That's a lot of energy and I think another wild card we need to stay aware of, along with the elevated SST's we're seeing.

Even with the cloudiness, it still speaks to much higher total enthalpy in the Arctic. Each year that increases, that improves the probability that the "pendulum" will swing wide and give us a 2012-like year.

[wayne]

There is no reason to be optimistic, increased cyclonic activity is a sign of more open water, it would be 2013 melt "ground hog day" all over again, except for much warmer sea surface temperatures, warmer ice core temperatures, thinner ice, a stubbornly strong Beaufort Gyre despite contrarian winds, less ice in Barents ad Greenland sea. Using Beaufort sea as an example, there is a twin complex, influx of heat from the warming Northern Pacific ( I expected this to be a bit slower), along with a long warmed Beaufort sea doesn't necessitate compaction to destroy sea ice:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=29&fy=2013&sm=06&sd=29&sy=2012

Looking at 2013 June 29 same date we clearly observe lots of ice near 100% covering Beaufort, substantial extent on Barents. The current ice field is substantially like 2012, this naturally implies weather likewise, sea ice influences weather, its cooler near the Pole now because of the cyclonic clouds, the last thing which can spare a disaster, but the ice field will ultimately cast 2013 like weather asunder.

Lets go back to 2007:

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=06&fd=29&fy=2007&sm=06&sd=29&sy=2012

Sea ice June 29 2007 was substantially more consolidated and extensive, yet 2007 was a great minima end of September. The ice field triggered a July Arctic Dipole. I didn't expect this for this year,
rather a dipole more with a High near the Pole and lower pressure over Beaufort. I still think there is potential for this to happen. at least in July. The heat to melt sea ice always comes from the South, insolation melts sea ice as well, but near the Pole it rather softens the ice warmer leaving it vulnerable to open water.

Its 2102 all over again, until something more dramatic occurs.

[John Christensen]

Thank you for another great update Neven!

I only have one item to question, which is:

"2016 still has many aspects going for it, .. and snow cover that vanished at record speed"

Remember that NH snow cover vanished in the spring of 2013 at record speed, as A. Slater remarked:

"From late-April to June 2013, snow cover extent retreated dramatically. On occasion during May, extent was the third lowest of all years on record.

The image below summarizes the maximum retreat in snow cover extent to have occurred for a 30, 45 and 60 day period for each of the past 46 years.
2013 showed the largest retreat of all years for these three periods of time."

http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/NH_SNOW/

Serreze and Barrett, again from your great entry 'on persistent cyclones', on the relationship between land and sea surface temperatures and cyclones:

"A fascinating feature of the northern high-latitude circulation is a prominent summer maximum in cyclone activity over the Arctic Ocean, centered near the North Pole in the long-term mean. This pattern is associated with the influx of lows generated over the Eurasian continent and cyclogenesis over the Arctic Ocean itself. Its seasonal onset is linked to the following: an eastward shift in the Urals trough, migration of the 500-hPa vortex core to near the pole, and development of a separate region of high-latitude baroclinicity. The latter two features are consistent with differential atmospheric heating between the Arctic Ocean and snow-free land."

And again from Serreze and Barrett:

"..the summer cyclone pattern owes its existence to differential atmospheric heating between the Arctic Ocean and snowfree land."

I would therefore argue that there may be a connection between the rapid snow cover retreat and the onset of cyclones seen in the CAB in June; the rapid snow cover decline basically alters the Arctic weather patterns to favor creation of cyclones in the CAB.

It would then also seem reasonable to argue that the retreat in NH snow allows land temperatures to rise more than SST over the sea ice, so that the difference in atmospheric heating is increasing and therefore allowing summer cyclones to become more prevalent.

[Neven]

I only have one item to question, which is:

"2016 still has many aspects going for it, .. and snow cover that vanished at record speed"

Remember that NH snow cover vanished in the spring of 2013 at record speed, as A. Slater remarked:

Okay, maybe I could've worded that better. What I meant to say, is that the completion of Eurasian and American snow cover melt (minus Greenland and CAA) was the earliest on record.

As you can see here at Rutgers Global Snow Lab, snow cover extent was really high in April 2013, so of course it vanished really fast when things heated up. It's a bit like really thin sea ice at the end of a freezing season (for instance in 2012) causing record rates of retreat at a later point.

This also underscores the fact that the Arctic was cold, and so the heat remained at lower latitudes, available to melt the snow (really fast).

I would therefore argue that there may be a connection between the rapid snow cover retreat and the onset of cyclones seen in the CAB in June; the rapid snow cover decline basically alters the Arctic weather patterns to favor creation of cyclones in the CAB.

Perhaps, but snow cover was really low in June 2012 (see here) and yet very sunny for the first two weeks, building up serious melting momentum that helped reach the record low September minimum.

Maybe something else is at play here as well. It's extremely difficult to tell with so many things going at once, in the Arctic and adjacent to it (North Pacific, etc).

[John Christensen]

Sorry; I did not mean to challenge if one 'record' was more significant than the other 'record' regarding snow cover decline.

And yes,Rutgers provide a good comparison, and I will need to agree it is difficult to tell how the years of 2012, '13, '15, and '16 would turn out so different just based on the NH snow cover.

It may just come back to my favorite, the Arctic Oscillation, in that when the AO is in the positive phase, there is an increased chance of cyclones to develop in the CAB, but it may need a 'spark' in the form of random weather/circulation - the butterfly effect as Edward Lorenz would say.

[wayne]

"2016 still has many aspects going for it, .. and snow cover that vanished at record speed"

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/06/effects-of-greater-snowfall-are-lasting.html

Not quite so, there was less snow in some areas and more so in others. This also created a different dynamical weather complex. The rapid melt in some areas was in fact less snow to melt with in the first place. Particularly interesting for Barents area (less). And now if ECMWF forecast holds true, is the return of the Anticylone pretty much where most snow remains.

[Artful Dodger]

[pardon the double-post;
right thread this time :^]

wayne wrote | June 30, 2016 at 07:03

"Its 2102 all over again, until something more dramatic occurs."

Hi Wayne,

Not to Rush things, but with CICE models running aboot a century behind the actual sea ice, I think its more like "2112 redux".

"I wandered home though silent streets
And fell into a fitful sleep
Escape to realms beyond the night
Dream can't you show me the light?"

The True North has seen more change in the past 40 years than in the last 8,000. How dramatic is that?

Bonne fête du Canada! Happy Canada D'eh! ;^)

Cheers,
Lodger

[wayne]

Thanks Artful

We may be boring to most people who don't know us, but that is quite alluring!

Take care not to take too much maple syrup :)

[Rob Dekker]

SIPN June report (predictions based on May data) is finally in :
https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2016/june

The median projection for September 2016 is 4.3 M km^2.
Now remember that SIPN projections have been both above and below the final September number.

In fact, the standard deviation for the combined model projections is 0.56 M km^2. which is not much different from the standard deviation of simply drawing a linear decline line for Arctic sea ice loss.

Interesting is that the complicated full coupled models done by professionals appear as 'skillful' as the simple statistical models done by amateurs (based on their spread and individual standard deviation).

I see three ASIB 'regulars' submitted entries :
- Chris Reynolds submitted 4.6.
- me (Rob Dekker) submitted 3.8.
- Larry Hamilton submitted the results of an informal poll from participants of the Polar Prediction Workshop in May : 4.14 average.

Now, remember these are numbers based on May data.
I cannot speak for the other participants, but for me, I've made it clear in the past that for my method, the May numbers do not show much "skill" (not better than simple linear projection) but the June numbers DO show skill, since June projections will have something like 300 k km^2 standard deviation, much better than linear projection.
Just one more week until I have the numbers from NSIDC and Rutgers for June.

But in general, the SIPN June report is fun read, with really creative projection methods. I encourage you to read it.

[Rob Dekker]

And regarding the short-term projections :
When I look at the latest image of ice concentration, like this one from Wipneus in the Beaufort :
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=382.0;attach=31733;image
or this image from A-team of the fragmented ice around the 80N line :
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1493.0;attach=31724;image
I believe 2016 will not simply 'stall' its way further into the pack.
We are going to see some serious decline in extent and area.
And we will see these drops very soon.

[Rob Dekker]

John said :

I will need to agree it is difficult to tell how the years of 2012, '13, '15, and '16 would turn out so different just based on the NH snow cover.

Nobody said that NH snow cover is the "only" variable. Especially not if you are looking at May snow cover.

[John Christensen]

Hi Rob,

SIPN June report;
Yes, interesting report, and amazing that the MetOffice forecasts 3.6 while NASA has 5.2 - someone need to revisit their factors and weights, maybe both.. ;-)

For ice concentration:

Andrew Slater has created a new site, where you can compare ice concentration for a given date for different years:

http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/ICEDIFF/

When comparing against most years, the ice concentration level of the central pack seems to be doing quite well, while we this year have lower concentrations in peripheral seas.

And,

"Nobody said that NH snow cover is the "only" variable"

Agreed; I should have been more clear. My point was that the spring snow cover probably correlates better with other variables (temperature, SLP) than with the decline in ice extent in June/July.

[wayne]

Looks like NW passage North of Alaska is about to open, and yes, we see on EOSDIS vast open water near the Pole, Latitude 87.5 N on the Atlantic side. The latter is great news for cloud driven cyclones, however the Pack is much more solid towards Greenland and CAA where a High is suppose to settle soon.

[wayne]

Disregard the massive open water at 87.5N, but North of Alaska passage will be open very soon!....

[Rob Dekker]

John said :

My point was that the spring snow cover probably correlates better with other variables (temperature, SLP) than with the decline in ice extent in June/July.

It would make sense if land snow cover in June correlates well with temperature over the Arctic later in the melting season.
But SLP ? Why would that correlate with snow cover ?
Either way, do you have any (correlation) numbers that back up your statements ?

[Rob Dekker]

Wipneus posted a century drop today :

Shadow NSIDC extent is 9.3344 a drop of -111.9.

Doesn't show up on NSIDC's site yet, because of daily "averaging", I guess.
But it is a sign of the times.

[Bill Fothergill]

"... Shadow NSIDC extent is 9.3344 a drop of -111.9 Doesn't show up on NSIDC's site yet ..."

Rob,

We must be looking at different places. The site at ...
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv

already shows the following...

29th Jun 9.446
30th Jun 9.334
1st Jul 9.179

Are you by any chance looking at the rolling 5-day Charctic site? This normally updates within about 30 minutes of the daily number being put up.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

The value shown there for 1st July (9.398 million sq kms) is the 5-day average of the dailies between 27 Jun - 1 Jul.

[Bill Fothergill]

Oops,

I've just noticed a broken link for daily NSIDC figures in my above post. This should read...

ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv

If there is a problem with Typepad displaying the full length of that string, the final part should read...

/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv

[Rob Dekker]

Hi Bill,

No. I was looking at Wipneus' posts, who calculates a "mirror" for NSIDC, which is spot-on in following the NSIDC ftp site you mentioned. And accordingly, Wipneus reported another century drop today :

Shadow NSIDC extent is now 9.1786 dropping -155.8k.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1457.msg82067.html#msg82067

which matches exactly with the NSIDC ftp site.

[Rob Dekker]

But, yes, you are right that I meant the Chartic site when I mentioned that these century drops don't show up yet on NSIDC's site (although the latest drop there (from 9.497 to 9.398) is as close to a century drop as you can get :o)

Point is, 2016 is going down quite rapidly and not giving up its position in the leading years. It is not going to disappear in the rest of the pack.

[wayne]

I'd expect the contrarians from UK Channel 4 to do"its the dawn of the new ice age" cart wheels in front of their editors in the next few days, as a modest High near the Pole will cool London down a bit. Alas the cleverly misleading contrarians can rest assured that it was all part of my projection since April. Therefore the world spins warmer still. Some regions will have to turn off the AC as other places will need to buy some. This is what happens when Arctic sea ice morphs smaller during summer.

[Shared Humanity]

wayne...

"...the Pack is much more solid towards Greenland and CAA where a High is suppose to settle soon."

If a persistent high were to set up over Greenland and the CAA, we could be in trouble. Atlantic waters are anomalously warm and any ice transported through the Fram or into the Barents east of Svalbard will melt quickly. I still feel this is the key to the final totals for this melt season.

[Neven]

I don't know about persistent, SH, but conditions definitely seem to be shifting to that set-up: A dipole with high pressure on the western half of the Arctic, and a somewhat large cyclone to get transport towards the Atlantic going.

Open skies and high temps forecast over Beaufort, CAA and Kara.

Fascinating melting season so far.

[StuartP]

NASA tells us that we are in a solar minimum at the moment, the sun is blank, no sunspots.
That is likely to remain the case for the next few years before it again begins to increase in activity.

So right now in terms of solar input of energy we are what should be another Maunder Minimum.
We are in solar terms at least a mini ice age.

Right now the CO2 levels are overwhelming that minimum and we are still threatening another record minimum in sea ice.

With CO2 still rising, what can we expect when this temporary dip in solar activity fades.
Physics tells us that the sun, as with every other star of it's type will increase in it's output over geological timescales.
The deniers like to claim that CO2 has been at current levels previously, but back then the Sun was 4% cooler.

Right now low solar activity is mitigating the impact, in 20 years time the increased output will enhance the effect.

If we do not solve the problem now, the issues to come may make it impossible to resolve.

[John Christensen]

"So right now in terms of solar input of energy we are what should be another Maunder Minimum.
We are in solar terms at least a mini ice age"

Easy does it.

The Maunder Minimum lasted about seventy years - it was the duration that made it exceptional.
It will therefore take a good while, before we could claim to have entered a period similar to that..

[wayne]

A great event is happening in Nunavut as we write:

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/07/sea-ice-affected-by-lot-of-snow-end.html

There are a lot of Arctic Sea Ice lessons to learn while it happens.
And the moon has something to do with it.

In addition:

One must note a couple of things, 2016 sea ice extent is 'potentially' ahead of 2012 because of Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay, which complete melt happened earlier in 2012. It is slower in 2016, like a Parrot I will say again "because of more snow"......

I notice with some interest greater open water very near the Pole:

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor,MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_Bands721(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands367(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands721(hidden),Graticule,Coastlines&t=2016-07-04&v=-501767.63428627,-112549.67978393461,295416.36571373,296026.3202160654

[viddaloo]

First half of the year is behind us and it's time to set the record straight. Some ice bloggers say 2016 won't even make it into the Top 3 lowest years for autumn minimum. To sea ice bloggers Chris Reynolds and Neven I pose this mid–year challenge: Please tell me how being 2nd lowest on record for July 3rd, being lowest on record for the longest consecutive period (90 days) on record, being lowest on record for a record number (125) of days so far, as well as being lower than any of the Top 3 in annual average extent and having lost more in annual average extent than any of the Top 3 years, to any rational human being can in any way be a telltale sign of a low melting momentum or signal a 2016 autumn minimum outside of the Top 3 scoreboard. I fear this may be just another round of wishful thinking.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/viddaloo/annual-average-extent-26-june3-july

[Jeff Kuper]

Check out the pretty intense ice loss where the Beaufort meets the CAA. A few days ago there was fairly solid ice coverage then a day of clouds and then the next day (July 3) satellite picture at arctic.io explorer shows an amazing wide swath of open water. I would expect a further serious loss of ice in the coming week as temperatures are expected to soar in the near future in this region.

[Neven]

Some ice bloggers say 2016 won't even make it into the Top 3 lowest years for autumn minimum.

Show us where they say that. Give us the quotes.

And in contrast, explain to me how this year is 100% sure to make the top 3 (NSIDC SII September extent), no matter what the weather does.

I fear this may be just another round of wishful thinking.

You mean like the annual announcement that the Arctic is going to go ice-free this year?

---

I'll repeat: This year has many things going for it, but June usually needs to be sunny and warm for extent to go really low in September. This wasn't the case, so now in July and August something extra needs to happen, like a persistent sunny period, extreme SAT and SST anomalies, or maybe some crazy cyclone, for this year to go as low as 2007, 2011 and 2012.

If nothing extra comes and the weather of the past few weeks is prolonged, this year will not make the top 3. I don't see how anyone could disagree with that, unless he believes in undersea volcanoes or some other invisible forcing that must be really, really bad because we can't see it.

But of course, as said, the weather forecast is hinting at something that could be considered extra. It's not going to be dull. Unlike others I'm open to multiple possibilities. :-)

[John Christensen]

Hi viddaloo,

As you saw from I believe Neven's first biweekly update, this year we have thin ice in peripheral seas and the (relatively) thicker ice in the Central Arctic Ocean, the CAB.

Therefore, it was to be expected for extent to decline fast in May and June, irrespective of the lows in the CAB.

However, as you see below (Click the 'Thickness and Volume' link), volume retreat has been restrained in June, and we are now at the 2004-13 average volume, according to DMI:

http://polarportal.dk/en/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/sea-ice-extent/

The June weather and restrained volume decline will make it difficult for 2016 to reach top-3 in minimum extent by Sept, but again weather can still change things to some degree.

[John Christensen]

"will make it difficult for 2016 to reach top-3 in minimum extent by Sept"

- And that is just me saying that, staying somewhat optimistic due to the blend forecast; neither fish nor bird, as I believe it was once labeled.. ;-)

[NeilT]

It's always worthwhile to be careful when talking about Sunspots and solar minimums.

Yes, spots drive the flux, but flux is still at around 70, or a little under 1/2 of the maximum this cycle.

Also we are still getting coronal holes and geomagnetic storming which we didn't really see between late 2008 and early 2010.

Yes there will be an impact but it takes a while to work out the extra heat from the peak solar from what I've seen.

Have a look at http://solarham.net/ for more info and some charts.

As was said, the Maunder Minimum was notable by it's length. People talked about another Maunder Minimum at the end of cycle 23 but it came to nothing but a slow start to a low cycle.

2012 is much more notable for when it happened in the cycle, the weakness of the cycle and the slowness of the solar cycle start which fed it.

On another note I've been saying since early May that this feels like 2006. Let me level set this against what that meant at the time. In 2006, 2005 was the lowest extent on record. It missed and, due to incredibly bad weather in June, came in well behind it.

If 2016 followed that track it would be somewhere behind 2007/2011, or maybe ahead depending on what the weather throws at it... As Neven says, never count out the weather in the Arctic, it will always surprise you if you do.

Whatever the weather does it's going to be an interesting August because the ice in in a real state compared to 2006.

[Cato Uticensis]

As usual a great update from Neven. I fully agree on all the points made in the article.

In particular weather conditions will be quite sunny and warm on the CAA and Beaufort for the next 7 days, which will probably facilitate a very early opening of the NW passages.

On the other hand, low pressures will insist on Laptev and ESS with cloudy skies and rather low temperatures. Also temperatures have been fairly normal for the last three weeks north of the 80th parallel, even slightly lower actually.

Glass half full: compared to one year ago the HP is definitely smaller and with lower values of the geopotential. Moreover, low pressure systems are forecast to persist on the Russian side of the Arctic and possibly even to further intensify and extend to the rest of the Arctic by mid-month.

I am following also the updates by DMI regarding the ice volume, and as highlighted by John (thanks for the fantastic link) the situation is quite interesting. Waiting for PIOMAS to confirm or contradict DMI's version.

Like Neven says, it's really a fascinating melting season, still open to quite different outcomes.

[Sam]

It's not so bad. Sure we're hanging on by a pinky and a thumb. Surely we'll be able to make it to the summit of El Capitan. We just need to rest here for a moment and get our wind back. And then we'll conquer the world. Yeah that's it. No worries.

What ever this year holds in store for the minimum, the course over the next dozen is clear. The ice is going. The ice is going fast. And once it is gone, events will take a wholly different and more accelerated course. Woo hoo! It's a race to the bottom. And all we have to do is let that little pinky slip.

[wayne]

Neven,

Viddaloo almost made a perfect point. This fixation over the minima in September is not so comprehensive. I rather think that 90 days or so at all time record Lows -is- what matters, regardless what happens for the rest of the melt season, the sea ice has not recovered and is going downwards.

As far as the minima is concerned, we do have people which change their projections a little too easily, this is an error in the effort of understanding sea ice. They should stand up to their earlier convictions, and dig out what went -not as thought- more.

There is in my estimate a 90% chance it will end up top 3. In fact #1, as projected in April. The reasons for making such a forecast have not changed. One forgets that the gyre doesn't give a damn about headwinds at this time, any wind direction in the same clockwise rotation will impress.

[Dan Ellis-Jones]

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time lurker, and I'm going a little OT, but not sure where to ask this otherwise.

Looking at the Climate Reanalyzer forecasts over the last month or so, there is seemingly extreme heat in Siberia and Northern Canada/Alaska.

The question is, how extreme are these temperatures? Are they way out of the norm, where the norm is 20th century, not post 2007.

I know CR shows the anomolies, but I suppose I'm looking for a reality check. Are great swathes of the lands around the Arctic Ocean seriously close to 20C (or even more) hotter than normal, day after day after day?

If so, surely permafrost is a thing of the past? And if permafrost is a thing of the past, doesn't that mean we are too?

[jdallen_wa]

Dan Ellis-Jones; I recommend this forum to you where there are active discussions of Permafrost.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/board,20.0.html

[Neven]

JAXA finally reports a century break (just the fourth this melting season so far), and 2016 is now lowest on record again.

[wayne]

Neven,

Parr to the course, the score is 2016 4 drops before this date and 2012: 6. Too close call for making 2016 fall off the record books in September. Even more compelling, so called "cold" June 2016 daily drop was was -62,229.5 a day compared to #1 record 2012 54,422 Km2 a day.

Most of excellent JAXA centuries drop were in July 2012. 2016 has a lot of momentum going for it. There is a lot of open water not really seen on EOSDIS at present, this is the only explanation why the cyclones die off very slowly when penetrating from either the Pacific and Atlantic.

Furthermore disguise, intrigue and sabotage for the nay sayers already giving up on 2016 being a serious contender, is the said greater snow depth in the North American side of the Pole. Which Barrow Strait is a classic example. I suggest a study for those falling prey to its illusion giving prowess for quite some time:

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/07/sea-ice-affected-by-lot-of-snow-end.html

A few days ago Barrow Strait looked covered solid like a rock, then magic, its wide open. So is the North American side of the Pole appearing just now as melting fast on JAXA:

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/Arctic_AMSR2_visual.png,

the snow carpet curtain is lifting revealing its secrets underneath.

Banzai to Nippon and Deutsch science cooperation! A prime example of intercultural achievements once only seen on Star Trek in the 60's.

[wayne]

bremen.de:8084/amsr2/Arctic_AMSR2_visual.png

[John Christensen]

Thanks Cato, and yes:

"Waiting for PIOMAS to confirm or contradict DMI's version"

So new PIOMAS data just got released. I have not downloaded the detailed set, but seems like the lowest June volume decline since at least 2010..

[John Christensen]

"seems like the lowest June volume decline since at least 2010"

Sorry, let me make that second lowest June volume decline since 2010, as June 2014 was lower.

[Rob Dekker]

There has been some speculation that 2016 will beat all records, and some speculation that it will not make the top-3.

I don't want to disappoint anyone, but regression analysis suggests that it will be neither of the two.

NSIDC's June 2016 "extent" and "area" numbers came in, as well as Rutger's snow lab's numbers for land snow in June.
Using these numbers in a formula that estimates how "white" the Arctic was in June
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/problematic-predictions-2.html
Regressed over past extent, I obtain between 4.0 and 4.1 M km^2 as the most likely outcome of the September sea ice extent this year.

More importantly, the standard deviation over this prediction is 340 k km^2, which is pretty darn 'tight', which means that we can say something about the probability of 2016's ranking.
Based on these numbers :

There is a 92% chance that 2016 will end up in the top-3 (only 2 out of 24 years showed a larger difference between 2011 and this 2016 projection).

There is 66% chance that 2016 will be second place (after 2007 but shy of 2012).

There is an 8 percent chance of 2016 beating the 2012 record in September.

[D]

Rob, 4.0 to 4.1 makes a lot of sense. The heat on the Canadian side of the Arctic for the next 10 days will help start the Canadian passages moving early this year so we can expect to see a big volume drop in the thick ice piled up on that side. However, the lack of movement of ice out of the Fram for the past month has really put a crimp in the chances of going lower than 2012.

[Bill Fothergill]

Rob,

I'm embarrassed to admit that I missed seeing your "Problematic Predictions 2" when it was posted 3 years ago. I had some on-going health issues about then, and was off-line (as opposed to flat-line) for some time.

Even more embarrassingly, I had forgotten that it was me who wrote the preceding "Problematic Predictions 1" - but we can safely chalk that memory failure down to encroaching senility.

My aim at the time had been to demonstrate that merely looking at single parameters (such as extent or area) was woefully inadequate as a predictor to even the near future.

I look forward to seeing how much predictive skill your multi-variate system displays over the coming months and years.

[Rob Dekker]

Hi Bill,
I want to thank you for your article back then, since it inspired me to post my thoughts in a reply, and thank Neven for upgrading that reply to a full article.

Over the years, I finetuned the formula, which shows "skill" (a semi-official term in statistics) in predicting September sea ice extent from June on. With the most important part that the 'standard deviation' is much lower than other predictive methods. Here are the results of the method for past years :

http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums/y396/RobDekker/June-14_zps7336859b.jpg

And for last year, the prediction was spot-on :
https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2015/july
https://www.arcus.org/files/sio/23220/dekker_july2015.pdf

I also have to admit that I probably posted my comment above about the June-data (with probabilities of the September 2016 rankings) in the wrong thread. I should have posted that June-data update to my SIPN 2016 prediction in the new SIPN thread that Neven uploaded a few hours before I posted my comment.

Neven, should I re-post that comment in your SIPN thread ?

[Neven]

Rob, that would make it easier to find if ever needed. :-)

[Bill Fothergill]

Rob,

Thank you for the kind words - much appreciated.

[Jim Hunt]

The first year ice between the Pole and Siberia is starting to look like the proverbial "pile of rubble":

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-images/summer-2016-images/#CAB

[Bill Fothergill]

... starting to look like the proverbial "pile of rubble"

Is that where you're planning to have the next surfing holiday, Jim?

You do realise that "pile of rubble" does not mean a large amount of Russian currency?

;-)

[Jim Hunt]

Thanks for the suggestion Bill, but I think rather more open water will be required before I take the plunge (h/t LRC):

https://vimeo.com/166930720

Post Brexit I fear I'll also be unable to afford a sufficiently large pile of rubbles :(

[wayne]

Hi Jim,

Yes, there is a lot of sea ice surface we don't see, quite cumbersome and fascinating at the same time. It looks like the entire pack will be rubble before very long.

[John Christensen]

"It looks like the entire pack will be rubble before very long"

wayne,

I don't think so; the forecast a few days ago had us headed for AO index around -1, but now it has flipped to around AO 1 a couple of days from now.

With that, the ecmwf forecast shows the low strengthening and doing a counter-clockwise trip from the Siberian side across to Beaufort and the CAA.

The greatest melt in history isn't performing too well right now after also lackluster results in June.

[Ian Allen]

Meanwhile on Greenland, OGImet is reporting 4.3C at 1800Z for summit station, I wonder if we have another big melt on?

[wayne]

John,

"The greatest melt in history isn't performing too well right now after also lackluster results in June."

"Melt" term is overused, there is also compaction driving open water to get wider on a vaster scale. 2016 has not have such a feature for summer yet, I expected this so, what is left is truly melting and different compactions than a classic dipole.

"the forecast a few days ago had us headed for AO index around -1, but now it has flipped to around AO 1 a couple of days from now."

Are you thinking that only compaction and a High over the Gyre does the great melts? Furthermore AO's are accidentally good for sea ice, as you know, sometimes AO can be negative and there can be a huge Low over the Arctic Ocean. AO doesn't explain anything, it is a computer model value dedicated to the positioning of the jet stream.

Missing the greater image? Likely because there of vast great rubble areas not seen , but presented by JAXA . This seems to be 2013 redux, but a lot of late 2013 melt is already here, more than 2 months ahead of time. Rubble is poorly deciphered from extent numbers. Finally 2016 has been the greatest 'melt' in history for months. Not to disallow the usual mid September fixation, which makes the news, but I prefer the more comprehensive analysis.

[Rob Dekker]

John Christensen said :

The greatest melt in history isn't performing too well right now after also lackluster results in June.

Wayne said that in a post on his own blog on May 29.
That was when 2016 was 500 k km^2 below the next contender (2015) and more than 1 M km^2 below 2012.

And that was before persistent lows of June 2016 put the brakes on 2016's, at that time, race to the abyss.

So do you REALLY have to rub this remark in his face ?
Seriously ?

Just be happy that these lows in June (and to a lesser extent in July) saved the ice and put it back into a more controlled decline.
Just remember, if June 2016 would

[Rob Dekker]

Let me complete that sentence :
If June 2016 would have shown the same highs that we observed in 2012 or 2007, thinks would have looked a LOT different, and you would not have patronized Wayne's statement from May 29.

Let everyone have their opinion please. No need to patronize.

[John Christensen]

Hi Rob,

I can't find the comments right now, but I believe wayne predicted the greatest melt in history in terms of extent and volume by Sept, and secondly I do not believe wayne has withdrawn or modified this prediction at this point.

I think wayne has a preference for making predictions early in the melt season compared to us wimps, who make predictions in June, when a considerable degree of events have already passed, so I do not see how a comment related to his current prediction would be inappropriate, as I specifically refer to the events taking place after his prediction was made.

So I think you are overreacting a bit: The game of measuring predictions against unfolding events must be part of the game - or predictions could be made at no cost and would be less fun.. ;-)

[John Christensen]

"AO can be negative and there can be a huge Low over the Arctic Ocean. AO doesn't explain anything, it is a computer model value dedicated to the positioning of the jet stream."

wayne, I do not disagree with you, but:
1) Positive AO index increases the chance of a low being centered in the CAB
2) Serreze and Barrett (2008) showed that the prevalence of cyclonic activity in the CAB in June/July decreases the risk of low Sept ice extent.

[wayne]

John

Not wimps, simply making it easier in predictions is OK, however changing ones mind mid course sort of defeats the purpose of doing earlier projections. Introspection is the greatest tool in forecasting.

"Serreze and Barrett (2008) showed that the prevalence of cyclonic activity in the CAB in June/July decreases the risk of low Sept ice extent. "

Most of us know this without reading this paper. However, I don't believe that Serreze and Barrett think that it will always take a 2007 style dipole to achieve great melts.

Finally, if you don't see the greatest decayed sea ice state in history now (without summer Arctic Dipole), you can't make good predictions. After all AO in June was strongly negative for half of June.... What gives?

[Rob Dekker]

John Christensen said :

I can't find the comments right now, but I believe wayne predicted the greatest melt in history in terms of extent and volume by Sept,

The comment was :
"Make no mistakes in judgement, this is the greatest melt in history"
which wayne made on May 29 on his own blog :
http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/05/2nd-remarkable-retreat-front.html
Which, noted, is NOT a prediction, just a statement of the state of the melting season at that time.

and secondly I do not believe wayne has withdrawn or modified this prediction at this point.

Since it was not a prediction, wayne has nothing to withdraw or modify. And your remark that "The greatest melt in history isn't performing too well " is still patronizing.

Yet, yes. The lows in June (and continuing in July) have saved the ice from imminent demise this melting season.

[John Christensen]

Rob,

It seems you are getting stuck on this point, so I have dug out the exchange with wayne from June 14th:

First from me:

"I read your blog wayne, seems dramatic:
"Make no mistakes in judgement, this is the greatest melt in history."
How would you define "greatest melt" in terms of quantity and time period?"

Then the reply from wayne:

"John

Sea ice extent is the trickiest geophysical feature to predict, because it can be severely compacted or scattered. Volume should be easier but Piomas has a great deal of trouble with it. I made it easier for myself:
"The potential for the North Pole to be sea ice free at Minima coming mid September has never been higher. Arctic sea ice extent will be smaller than all time lowest record of 2012."
Written 2 months ago:
http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2016/04/2016-annual-spring-projection-made-by.html
I find General Circulation Predictions a walk in the park compared to the very complex nature of not so simple sea ice."