Arctic Sea Ice

Lowest maximum on record (again)

After a drop of almost 262 thousand km2 in just three days, it looks highly likely that the maximum for sea ice extent was reached two weeks ago, according to the data provided by JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (via ADS-NiPR ; it used to be provided by IJIS).

It's a new lowest maximum record, and the third time in a row that extent stayed below the 14 million km2 mark. The previous lowest max on record was reached in 2015 (13.942 million km2), almost beaten last year (13.959 million km2), but this year SIE went lower still and peaked at 13.878 million km2.

This graph by commenter Deeenngee, posted on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, visualizes maximums from the past and the trajectory to this year's max:

It looks highly likely that the max has been reached for NSIDC daily SIE as well (graph provided by Jim Hunt from the Great White Con blog), a third record low in a row if my eyes don't deceive me:

The drops are mostly driven by sea ice reductions in the Bering and Okhotsk Seas, but will soon be joined by drops on the Atlantic side of the Arctic as well, as the ice is pretty thin there, according to the Uni Bremen SMOS thin sea ice map.

Given the wind forecast, I also expect further sea ice retreat from the southern shores of Novaya Zemlya (similar to what happened in 2011 and 2012):

ASI 2016 update 2: closing the gap

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 11th 2016

This update could have easily borne the same title as update 1: Both sides. Two weeks ago the ice pack was shrinking on both sides of the Arctic, causing sea ice extent to drop to unprecedented daily lows. In the meantime, weather patterns have switched and the ice pack is now expanding on both sides!

Of course, a dispersing ice pack will cause extent loss to slow down, or even stall completely for a while. Especially if extent was extremely low to begin with. And so that enormous gap between this year and 2012 is getting smaller every day, fast. 2012 had perfect weather for melting during the first two weeks of June, and there was a large amount of thin ice that kept extent artificially high.

More importantly, these weather conditions set the tone for the rest of the 2012 melting season, as a large amount of melt ponds preconditioned the ice for big melts during July and August. This is where 2016 is falling behind now, even though it has been and still is lowest in many respects (extent, volume, snow cover).

2012 is punching hard in this round. Will it be enough to knock 2016 out?

ASI 2016 update 1: both sides

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.

May 27th 2016

After an unprecedented warm winter and an unprecedented early opening of the Beaufort Sea, the 2016 melting season isn't showing any signs of shrugging off the 'unprecedented' label. What has struck me most so far, is that unprecedented things have been happening on both the Pacific and Atlantic side of the Arctic.

I've been closely observing events in the Arctic for almost a decade now, and have been writing about them since 2010, and during that time I have gotten used to this sort of see-saw, where fast melting on one side of the Arctic would be compensated by events unfolding slowly on the other side of the Arctic. But this year is different. This year the ice pack is under attack on both sides of the Arctic.

I have written separate blog posts to describe these events (see here and here), and in weeks to come these ASI updates will provide a comprehensive overview on what is happening to the sea ice in the Arctic, and how this melting season is unfolding.

Sea ice extent (SIE)

Let's jump right into it. Here's the latest JAXA SIE graph:That gap is pretty intense. I wasn't kidding when I said 'unprecedented'. Last year - orange line - was already quite spectacular, but this year is crazy.

As commenter Jim Pettit wrote on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum earlier today:

Meanwhile, on the other side

Lately the focus has been on the Beaufort Sea where a high-pressure area has caused the ice pack to crack on a massive scale, even earlier than in previous years, with ice being transported away from the North American coast (see here). But such a large and persistent high-pressure system is bound to have an impact elsewhere in the Arctic as well, so here's an overview of what's been happening on the Atlantic side of the Arctic (and a bit of Siberia as well).

As we saw in the recent 2015/2016 Winter analysis blog post, the Arctic experienced an incredibly warm/non-cold winter:

On top of that, a string of cyclones crossed the Atlantic and veered off to the Arctic, causing increased ocean heat flux on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, which explains why the Barentsz Sea and Greenland Sea have been anomalously low in sea ice extent all winter. They're still extremely low:

In fact, Svalbard could almost be circumnavigated several times, with at one point very close to ice-free conditions from Svalbard all the way to Franz Josef Land.This graph from the PolarView website shows how anomalously low sea ice levels have been in the Svalbard region:

An exceptional exception

Winter is supposed to be a time when things quiet down in the Arctic, animals hibernate in complete darkness, and all that can be seen from satellites is this great, icy mass getting bigger and bigger. That's how it goes most of the time, despite the spectacular summer sea ice losses of the past decades. But of course, there are exceptions, and this winter is one of those. In fact, it's an exceptional exception.

I want to highlight a couple of things to give you an idea of what's going on in the Arctic right now. As some of you may already know, this year's trend line is the lowest on record in practically every graph (see here). So far, it has played a major role in the breaking of Global sea ice area and extent minimum records, and it looks highly possible that last year's Arctic sea ice maximum record gets broken too. Mind you, that record was already spectacularly early and low, which is why I referred to it as Mad Max at the time.

It's a bit too early to be calling the max, which I vowed never to do again anyway, but here's the current situation on the Cryosphere Today sea ice area and JAXA sea ice extent graph (as provided by ADS-NIPR):

2015 peaked on this date in the CT SIA data set, but this year is currently 700K lower (last week's preliminary peak was almost 600K lower). The 2015 maximum occurred on February 15th in the JAXA SIE data set, but this year's preliminary peak is almost 274K lower. That's no small change, if things stay this way.

When area/extent is exceptionally low, it's usually a sign of something going on one side of the Arctic, while things are relatively quiet on the other side. This year, however, there's stuff going on on both sides of the Arctic. I'll start with the Pacific side of the Arctic, where regional extent is again very low in the Bering Sea, though high in the Sea of Okhotsk (these graphs are produced by Wipneus and can be found on the Regional Graphs page):

Global sea ice area record minimum?

This post is about global sea ice area, the simple addition of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice area.
As a statistic it's somewhat interesting, but it doesn't convey all that much information about the individual health of both polar regions,
let alone their sub-regions.

Despite this fact, or probably because of it, it's often being touted by climate risk deniers as proof that global warming is a scam and all is well, because Arctic sea ice loss is compensated by a growth in Antarctic sea ice. Even if this were true - it isn't, as this Skeptical Science article explains - it's like saying there is no hunger in the world because there are so many obese people.

But anyway, we're approaching that time of year when global sea ice area as calculated by and presented at Cryosphere Today is going to hit its minimum, or lowest amount of sea ice cover. And currently the number is quite low, as can be seen on this graph from Piotr Djaków's Pogoda i Klimat website:

According to the data 2016 is already 4th lowest at 14.73 million km2, just behind 2007's minimum, and almost 350K behind 2011 and record holder 2006 (14.39 million km2, the grey trend line just below the 2011 green trend line). Below I'll discuss the factors that will determine whether a new record is in the books.

An absolute prerequisite for a new record is for Antarctic sea ice area to go low. Whereas it's freezing in the Arctic right now, it's summer in the Southern Hemisphere and so the Antarctic melting season is slowly moving towards its apogee. If we look at the NSIDC sea ice extent graph for March, for instance, we can see some fairly large swings, with record years 2006 and 2011 standing out with their distinct dips:

Early record, late record

10 days ago I posted a blog post called Mad max. The title - referring to a very early maximum sea ice extent - ended with a question mark, because it was far from sure whether the preliminary max reached on February 15th would remain standing. This is because of the oscillatory nature of the final phase of the freezing season, where weather conditions can cause the ice pack to expand very rapidly in one or more of the fringe regions.

Here's how things currently look on the JAXA sea ice extent graph:Edit March 18th - A commenter sent me this updated graph today, with a correction (2010 had the latest max on record, not 2014):

Since posting that blog post, JAXA SIE dropped up to 318 thousand square kilometres below the preliminary maximum, but has since crept upwards again. The current difference is 186 thousand square kilometres, which still is quite significant. In fact, a new max becomes less and less probable as time wears on, with the Sun creeping higher in the sky, shining on larger parts of the ice pack every day.

At the same time, with extent relatively low, there's plenty of freezing potential on the fringes. And we're talking about the Arctic here. It has a reputation of crazy swings to uphold. Here's a map with the names of the regions that have a final say in where the maximum ends up, with the orange line showing the average ice pack edge for the 2000's:

And here are the graphs for each of these regions, produced by the prolific Wipneus, that show what has been happening regionally in the past weeks, with the purple line showing the JAXA SIE data for 2015.

First the regions with freezing potential:

ASI 2013 update 6: major slowdown

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) and IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2012 period (NSIDC has a good explanation of sea ice extent and area in their FAQ). 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.

August 4th 2013

"As the weather is switching again, things will probably slow down." That's what I wrote two weeks ago for the conclusion of ASI 2013 update 5, and never has a greater understatement been made. At least not on this blog.

The weather did switch from an ideal set-up for ice decrease (causing one of the most rapid decreases on record) to a situation that is next best for ice decrease, with a fierce, but short storm at its heart, finally followed by the neither-fish-nor-flesh set-up where weather is fickle in the Arctic and never really settles on a stable pattern that can deepen to one of the other two states.

This almost always slows down ice decrease, and I say 'almost' because last year it didn't. Frankly, I was expecting it wouldn't have as much of an impact as it did in the past two weeks, because we started the year out with a record amount of first-year ice. And despite (or because of) the slow start to the melting season the melting potential is huge.

But huge or no huge, the impact of the weather has been huge as well. In fact, it's so big that I'm starting to doubt my eyes.

Sea ice area (SIA)

I don't know what is going on over at Cryosphere Today, but the melting has come to a complete standstill. In the past 10 days the ice pack has not lost, but gained 20K km2! That's so crazy for this phase of the melting season that I barely have words for it. It's unique as far as the record goes.

Here are the graphs for this month and the previous one:

ASI 2013 update 5: cyclone time again

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) and IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2012 period (NSIDC has a good explanation of sea ice extent and area in their FAQ). 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.

July 21st 2013

Due to technical problems, a video will be posted later today or tomorrow.

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Two weeks ago I said: Bye bye, Beaufort. But the ice in the Beaufort didn't really wave back. It retreated somewhat, but much less than I expected after a full week of ideal conditions. At the end of winter the ice was supposed to be thinner there than last year (when it retreated at an amazing pace) and it currently looks extremely mushy out there, individual floes can hardly be made out. But somehow the ice pack is standing its ground in that part of the Arctic.

Nevertheless, with all the easy ice melting out elsewhere, trend lines on extent and area graphs plummeted, and 2013 slashed some of the difference with previous record years 2007, 2011 and 2012. However, with most of the easy ice now gone and ideal conditions fading out in the past couple of days, things have started to slow down.

There's still a lot of melting potential around (and within) the pack, and with a potentially big cyclone forecasted to form in a couple of days, there's no telling what can happen.

Sea ice area (SIA)

Cryosphere Today has had several big melting periods this month (13 century breaks in 19 days), albeit interspersed with some slow days, and so a very high rate of daily decrease (only 2009 comes close) has brought 2013 real close to 2007 and 2011, and the difference with 2012 has been reduced further to a little over 500K.

Here's the graph based on the latest data:

If this is real...

As usual, it's all about the if. Allow me to explain what this is about:

In the first Arctic Sea Ice update of the 2013 melting season that was posted a couple of days ago, I announced that a cyclone was forecasted to move over the Arctic Basin and stay there for a while. It's been there for a couple of days now as can be seen on this animation of Danish Meteorological Institute SLP images:

It's not particularly strong (especially not compared to GAC-2012), but it stays in the same spot for quite a while and so is bound to have some effect on the ice below. Now, according to the Naval Research Laboratory's ACNFS forecast model, this effect is quite pronounced. And to show you just how pronounced, here's their sea ice concentration animation from May 22nd, with a forecast up to June 6th: