Arctic Sea Ice

Bering goes extreme

The melting season hasn't started in earnest yet, but it seems the Bering Sea hasn't received the memo. For almost the entire winter, sea ice has been reluctant to form there, and now that the Sun has returned, the ice edge has started to retreat to record high latitudes, past the Bering Strait all the way up into the Chukchi Sea. Here's how that looks on Wipneus' regional graph:

To emphasize how truly exceptional this is, here's a comparison with the situation in all other years from the 2006-2018 period (images retrieved from the University Bremen sea ice concentration maps page on the ASIG, click for a larger version):

Now, if this was it, other years would maybe catch up in the next few weeks, but this isn't it. The coupled HYCOM-CICE model from the Naval Research Laboratory forecasts the sea ice to continue to drift northwards, until the end of the month at least:

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:

Miscellanea

I have collected a couple of interesting news articles and interviews over the past few weeks, and now it's time to share with those of you who haven't seen them. I'm posting what I found the most interesting excerpts, follow the links if you want to read the rest.

First up, an interview on SciencePoles with Dr. Agneta Fransson, chemical oceanographer at the Norwegian Polar Institute, called Explaining ocean acidification and consequences for Arctic marine ecosystems:

Are Arctic waters more susceptible to ocean acidification compared to the rest of the world’s oceans? If so, why?

The Arctic Ocean has had high concentrations of CO₂ dissolved in it since historical times. This is due to physical processes such as cooling of the relatively fresh surface water, which causes this surface water to sink below the surface towards the bottom of the ocean. When this colder, denser water sinks, it sequesters atmospheric CO₂ in the Arctic Ocean. So this results in the Arctic Ocean having a much lower pH and concentrations of carbonate ions (CO₃^2-) compared to other oceans of the world.

The water in the Arctic is also colder. Since CO₂ is much more soluble in cold water than it is in warm water, this makes it easier for the ocean to take up more CO₂. In addition, as sea ice cover continues to retreat in the Arctic, there will be more open water, which may allow for more direct CO₂ uptake into the ocean, and further lowering the ocean’s pH. And, as I mentioned earlier, freshwater influx from rivers empyting into the Arctic ocean, along with melting sea ice, also contribute to lowering the pH of the ocean.

The interview fits in well with this article on other work by the Norwegian Polar Institute that was placed on the website of the Fram Centre. This research is extremely important as ocean heat flux is one of the most influential, but nonetheless relatively poorly understood, factors concerning Arctic sea ice loss.

The article is called New data on Atlantic inflow to the Arctic Ocean reveal effects on sea ice and marine ecosystems:

Arctic ice melt = 20 years of CO2 emissions

With records being shattered all over the place, some names in the cryospheric community are gaining in prominence. One of those names is Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Cambridge, who has been predicting for years the things we are currently witnessing. He already was a prominent expert, allowed to hop on British submarines to measure Arctic sea ice thickness from below, leading him to conclude in 1996 that Arctic ice had thinned by 40 per cent since the 1970s. But he is one of the few scientists to come out early and warn about the impending disappearance of Arctic sea ice and its consequences.

BBC Newsnight has more from Professor Wadhams:

Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions'

Loss of Arctic ice is effectively doubling mankind's contribution to global warming, ice scientist Professor Peter Wadhams has told BBC Newsnight.

White ice reflects more sunlight than open water, acting like a parasol.

Melting of white Arctic ice, currently at its lowest level in recent history, is causing more absorption.

Prof Wadhams calculates that this increased absorption of the sun's rays is "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man".

The Cambridge University expert says that the Arctic ice cap is "heading for oblivion".

Stronghold

I think we all remember what the conclusion was after the last freezing season (see 2011/2012 Winter analysis):
sea ice on the Atlantic/Siberian side of the Arctic looks vulnerable, sea ice on the Pacific/North American side should be thicker. So far there has been a very clear confirmation of the first half of this conclusion, in that the ice on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, along the Siberian coast, has retreated very fast, perhaps even faster than last year.
This comparison I made a couple of days back (for the Fringe Fries 2 blog post) shows it well. For a more recent comparison I refer you to the Concentration Maps page on the ASI Graphs website.

I now want to take a look at how the ice on the other side has been doing so far. The Pacific/North American side basically consists of three regions: the Canadian Archipelago, the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea. In last month's blog post concerning the Northwest Passage it became clear that the Canadian Archipelago was mostly filled with first-year ice, but because of a relatively cold freezing season the ice was probably a bit thicker. The ice in the Northwest Passage and the rest of the Archipelago has been holding up pretty well, better than in previous years (as confirmed by the MASIE extent graph), but due to high temperatures and quite a bit of insolation in the last couple of weeks, the NWP now seems to be breaking up from the inside out. As the fast ice in Nares Strait broke up 10 days ago and ice transport from the Arctic Basin is about to start, I don't think the ice in the NWP is going to hold out much longer.

Because the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are neighbours, I have made this comparison of University of Bremen sea ice concentration maps on July 7th in the 2004-2012 period, showing both regions (click for a larger version):

Ocean heat flux

There are many factors involved in the current long-term decline of Arctic sea ice. From relatively small ones like river discharge, precipitation and soot, to bigger factors like atmospheric patterns and air temperatures.
The possibly biggest factor of all is also the
factor that is the most unknown and uncertain: ocean heat flux. How much heat are ocean currents bringing into the Arctic?

To quote the first paragraph of this 2011 article by Ron Kwok and Norbert Untersteiner: "The surplus heat needed to explain the loss of Arctic sea ice during the past few decades is on the order of 1 W/m2. Observing, attributing, and predicting such a small amount of energy remain daunting problems."

Ocean heat flux is what separates the aggressive and famous forecast by Wieslaw Maslowski (Arctic essentially ice-free by September 2016, ± 3 years) from more conservative estimates that predict the thing to happen between 2050 and the end of this century. As explained in this BBC article from 2007: