Arctic Sea Ice

Freezing season 2014/2015 open thread 1

Here's the first open thread of the 2014/2015 freezing season, beginning with the last comment on the latest PIOMAS thread by commenter Clare:

I just wanted to help spread the word about this climate related fund-raising project, last 4 days & they are 3/4 the way there!
CLIMATE DOCUMENTARY THIN ICE RAISING MONEY FOR US BROADCAST
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thinicefilm/editing-thin-ice-climate-science-documentary-for-b

See the details over at the Forum, on this link:
http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,179.msg39956.html#msg39956

The documentary's website can be found here, and here's the trailer:

Discuss anything concerning the Arctic in this open thread. Or go to the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, of course.

Freezing season 2013/2014 open thread 2

First open thread reached the 200 comment mark, so it's time for a new one.

Over on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum commenter Espen keeps track of several things related to sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet, one of those being the Jakobshavn Glacier - also known as Jakobshavn Isbræ and Sermeq Kujalleq - which I wrote about a bit back in 2010, in 2011 and last year.

It looks like Jakobshavn has retreated another 3 km inland, despite a cold melting season for Greenland:

This time it was the southern branch that retreated most. As NASA's Earth Observatory had it, also back in 2010:

In the winter of 2010, Jakobshavn’s ice front did not re-advance as it usually does, so it began the 2010 melt season in the same location as the 2009 summer melt season. As a result, the glacier had the potential to experience significant retreat during the summer of 2010. The breakup in early July 2010 occurred on the northern tributary to Jakobshavn Glacier. The southern tributary actually drains a larger portion of Greenland’s central ice sheet, so a retreat there could lead to a more substantial ice discharge.

Thank you, Espen!

Freezing season 2013/2014 open thread 1

Here's a first open thread for this freezing season, which will be followed by monthly instalments. I apologize yet again for having been so inactive on the blog. I'm the kind of person who shuts off certain activities when being too busy with momentarily higher-priority stuff, but with the exterior of our house now nearing completion and being badgered by a well-respected member of the blog community (you know who I mean ;-) ), I will try and make the blog more interesting again.

As announced in the comment section of the previous blog post there will be a post-season auto-flagellation and analysis forthcoming, and this will probably lead to more speculation of what to expect next year and after.

In the meantime I want to draw some well-deserved attention to the effort made by Jim Hunt of the econnexus blog who has set up a special website called the Great White Con to document the lies and misinformation spread by GWPF operative and Daily Mail 'journalist' David Rose and other British media outlets. Jim is now making videos to highlight the problems with this propaganda. Here's his latest one:

Have at it!

Open Thread February 2013

The previous open thread has gotten full enough, so here's a new one.
We might want to kick off with this animation made by commenter A-Team:

His comment:

Don't miss this -- it's happening right now, by the hour -- so head on over to 80N 150W. A huge fracture has been opening a bit east of Barrow, Alaska the last few days and it's really accelerating. The AVHRR images come up every few hours as the satellite comes over -- but they're not archived so you have to "be there" to catch them. I attached a still of the key region with a few land features labelled and an approximate distance scale as the animations is intended primarily to illustrate pack ice motion.

The imagery motions agree quite well with the Navy HYCOM ice speed and drift animation. That predicts five days out and so gives some indication of what to expect. I just attached a still for today. All the ice is moving the same way, clockwise in the Beaufort Gyre. It is just that the ice southeast of the lead just can't keep up. The ice no longer has the mechanical strength that it once did and so is fracturing under extensional tension.

Thanks for keeping an eye on this, A-Team!

2013 Open thread #1

I was planning on writing posts more regularly, but reality forbids. So here's an open thread for all of your off-topic banter.

source: Space Daily

Will be back next week when I get an Internet connection in our new apartment. There's plenty to write about: that science report, the lower albedo of thin year ice, algae, earthquakes, microbes...

Minimum open thread

The reports of my return are greatly exaggerated. I'm still at my holiday address, on the wretched 56K modem. As I'm going to be realy offline now for 2-3 days to visit my 97 year old grandfather and his 400 litre wine cask, I thought an open thread would be a good idea.

Can we start speculating about the minimum yet? I know trend lines are still dropping, and after this crazy melting season, I don't feel able or willing to make any pronouncement on when it will stop. In 2010 and 2011 the weather forecast maps helped me to announce the minimum a few days in advance, but those maps aren't any help to me this year. All I'm seeing for the coming five days is a persistent high over the Siberian coast and a huge low developing near Iceland, reaching all the way to Scandinavia and the UK. Normally this would mean slowdown for ice decline or even minimum, but this melting season isn't normal.

From one M to another M: Methane. R. Gates posted some graphs of the latest CH4 readings in Barrow, like this one of readings since 2000:Those little red dots on the right are pretty far out. Here's a close-up for recent months:

Now, these outliers could be due to some measurement mistake (happens frequently). In fact, it's the most probable explanation. But after a record melting season, both in the Arctic Ocean and on the Greenland Ice Sheet, this would be yet another stunner. If I've understood correctly, it will take a while for these readings to be corrected or confirmed.

More on methane: Additional to his sea ice thickness web page, Apocalypse4Real has started a methane web page, where he compares IASI data to AIRS/Giovanni methane data. Read his comments below for further explanations.

Arctic summer storm open thread 1

As the storm is still there, big, but no longer strong, and comment threads fill up quickly, I figured it's time for an open thread. And yes, it's a bit of an update as well, with interesting comments and graphs.

But first the updated animation. Now that the swathe of ice floes in the East Siberian Sea has detached itself, it's time to slowly say bye-bye to the ice atoll in the upper left corner:

sea ice concentration maps courtesy of the University of Bremen

Here's a comment by Rob Dekker that I want to put the spotlight on, because it's very interesting and gets to the core of the consequences of this storm:

April 2012 Open Thread

Just like with calling the CT SIA maximum, I can't even get the timing for the last open thread right. But the March open thread was getting full. This should be the last one. I think.

image by Paul Nicklen, found on the Narwhal's Left Tooth blog

I'll be gone for a couple of days, but should be back before next weekend.

March 2012 Open Thread

This will be the last open thread of the freezing season. Use it wisely.

     image found here

February 2012 Open Thread

There's a poll in the right hand bar running until February 8th for predicting the Cryosphere Today maximum sea ice area number. Don't be afraid to share your prediction in the comments of this thread: 2012 Maximum Area Pool

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We are entering the final phase of the freezing season. After that there will be a short lull, with sunlight and warmth trying to grab the Arctic back from Winter's clutch. Then the melting season will start all over again.

Image retrieved from this blog post on ringed seals

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Edit February 4th: the scientists at the University of Washington's Polar Science Center have updated the PIOMAS volume graph: