Arctic Sea Ice

The Arctic is not an adventure playground

Some of you may already have heard about how this year
a cruise ship called Crystal Serenity is going to sail the Northwest Passage with more than 1000 guests. Prices range from $22,000 to $121,000 dollars per passenger (drinks included). Here's how the journey is being advertized:

Follow in the footsteps of intrepid explorers as you sail through unparalleled landscapes of grand glaciers, stunning fjords, and rare wildlife sightings as you learn the Arctic culture and its fascinating people.

1000 people who are eternally desperate to inflate their egos and reduce their boredom, will follow in the footsteps of McClure, Parry, Amundsen and Larsen. From their top-deck jacuzzis they will observe the blueness of that which once was white. Maybe they'll take helicopter flights to Jakobshavn Glacier and hope for a good calving, make selfies on Beechey Island in front of the Franklin crew graves, leave some trash behind. 'Look, honey, that's where the Gjøa was stuck in the ice. Can you pass me the shrimp-o-naise?'

In short, they're going to check personally the result of their actions.
With great wealth comes great responsibility. Tell the grandkids.

I'm trying to stay polite here. Someone who is more successful at staying polite and explaining the problems of this slap-in-the-face example of disaster tourism, is Suzanne Goldenberg, perhaps the best reporter on Arctic matters at the moment. Here are the final paragraphs of her latest column on The Guardian, but the stuff preceding it, is well worth reading as well:

2015/2016 Winter analysis

I think this winter is going to get studied like crazy,
for quite a while. It’s a very interesting time.
        Jennifer Francis, Washington Post

The extraordinary temperature anomalies in the Arctic since the start of the year haven't gone unnoticed in quite a few media outlets, and I apologize for not having joined the fray of actuality. On the other hand, context trumps actuality, as we need to compare to previous years and get a feel for what this prelude to the melting season may mean. In that sense, I'm early with this year's winter analysis (compared to last year).

Let's start studying like crazy, shall we?

It's a lot of text and images, so if you're feeling a bit tl;dr-ish today,
skip to the conclusion at the bottom of the page.

Surface air temperature

Here are the monthly temperature graphs for November-February in the Arctic Circle, from 2005/2006 to the past winter, based on the NCEP reanalysis dataset:

Last November saw the highest average monthly temperature in the 2005-2015 record, followed by a lower December, relatively speaking. Things then get a little bit crazy after the turn of the year, with the January 2014 record getting broken by almost 3 °C! February isn't far behind either, almost 1.5 °C higher than the already 'warm' February of 2014. This is unprecedented.

To see where temps were least low, I've created average temperature maps using the Daily mean composites page from NOAA's Earth Science Research Laboratory website, comparing the 2015/2016 freezing season to those preceding the years with the lowest minimums on record (click for a larger version):

Northern Sea Route operational all year round

I saw this pop up on the website of the Northern Sea Route Information Office, but they have it from Arctic-info:

Rogozin: Northern Sea Route could become operational round the year

“Russia has all the possibilities to make the Northern Sea Route operational round the year and in any season,” vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin said today at a plenary session of the international forum on the Arctic.

"It is important that our structures and bodies responsible for the Northern Sea Route and the administration of the Northern Sea Route should be generators of ideas rather than the bodies stating facts and they should elaborate proposals on creating those technologies that will help make the Northern Sea Route operational round the year and in any season," the vice-premier said. "We have all technological possibilities for this," Rogozin added.

According to his report, the ambitious tasks of developing the Northern Sea Route are a priority for Russia along with the task of ensuring mobility and transport accessibility, TASS reports.

The Northern Sea Route development model will integrate all kinds of transport communication, including the air, river and railway carriages. In his state-of-the-nation address to both houses of Russia’s parliament, President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of the competitiveness of the Northern Sea Route, which should become a link between Europe and the Asia-Pacific Region, the vice-premier said.

Russia also needs to create its icebreaker fleet, which will open big prospects for leading vessels along the Northern Sea Route, the vice-premier noticed.

Rogozin noted that Russia has invited China to take part in delivery of cargos to the Northern Sea Route.

2015 minimum overview, part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1, wherein I posted several graphs and maps depicting the 2015 minimum, and the weather conditions leading up to it (Tamino has a great blog post showing the long-term sea ice extent trends, all of them, not just the cherry-picked, meaningless one the GWPF selected to mislead).

Before jumping into the ice age and volume data that is (perhaps) most interesting, intriguing, but also incomplete, I want to refer to one more factor that - besides weather conditions and ocean heat flux - can play an important role in how a single melting season plays out: land snow cover.

Here are the monthly Northern Hemisphere snow cover anomaly graphs from the Rutger University Global Snow Lab during the melting season:

It's clear snow cover got pretty low during June and July. It's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg kind of mutual influence thing, with an albedo feedback leading to warming over land, leading to increased snow melt, etc. which then starts to influence the Arctic and its sea ice as well. There's been ongoing speculation on this correlation between land snow cover and sea ice for years now, and my guess is that there's a there there, but as it isn't the only influence, it's hard to quantify it. Either way, it has to do with (global) warming, as attested by commenter Al Rodger's guest blog a few years ago: The untold drama of Northern snow cover.

And so we turn to multi-year ice. I'll repost this animation from a blog post I posted two weeks ago, showing how virtually all of the older, thicker multi-year ice on the Pacific side of the Arctic has melted out this melting season:

ASI 2015 update 6: one more high

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 2005-2014 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 19th 2015

We are now entering the final weeks of the 2015 melting season. A relatively cold and cloudy start (not as cold and cloudy as the two previous rebound years) was compensated by a July that was ideal for melting. A continuous bombardment of heat and sunshine for weeks on end has caused some late melting momentum which is now keeping sea ice extent and area numbers dropping relatively evenly, despite a switch in weather conditions since the beginning of the month (see ASI 2015 update 5: late momentum).

As expected, the 2015 trend line on most graphs is hovering between top 3 years 2012, 2007 and 2011, and rebound years 2013 and 2014. It's difficult to tell how low things will end up. Melting momentum is one thing, but at this stage of the melting season weather conditions have the last word. It's compaction rather than melting that determines the final shape of the ice pack, and compaction depends on which way the winds are blowing, which in turn depend on the constellation of cyclones and anti-cyclones, or high pressure areas. See this blog post from an eternity ago, 2010, that explains how it works.

And now for the details...

Sea ice area (SIA)

Here's the latest Cryosphere Today SIA chart, to which I've added preliminary data as calculated by Wipneus:

Beaufort and Northwest Passage videos

Over on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum commenter Jim Hunt from the Great White Con blog posted videos he made, showing developments since the start of the month in the Northwest Passage (where the blue ice is breaking up fast):

Events since April 1st in the Beaufort Sea have been even more spectacular. A late cracking event, heat waves and scattered multi-year ice floes, all of it in just one minute and a half. Enjoy:

Jim used data from the University of Hamburg for these animations, with an extremely low resolution of 3.125 km (edit: high resolution of course, for more technical info see this research paper).

Update July 19th:

Jim has added another animation showing the situation along the Northern Sea Route:

ASI 2015 update 3: what's it going to be?

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 2005-2014 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.

June 21st 2015

Today is the day of summer solstice, when the Sun reaches its highest point as seen from the North Pole, beating down 24 hours per day on the sea ice below (when not blocked by clouds). The period preceding and following this event is very important for how the melting season plays out, as it is during this time that large parts of the Arctic sea ice pack are preconditioned through melt ponds.

This preconditioning in turn influences melting momentum. A lot of momentum almost guarantees high melt rates, whereas little momentum does the opposite, depending on weather conditions during July and August as well, of course. Last week I wrote a blog post in which I tried to assess the amount of melt ponding through May, by comparing this year to previous years.

The first half of May was extremely cold, with the second half of May showing almost the exact opposite. Still, indications were that relatively few melt ponds have shown up during May and the first half of June. This is now changing, as can be seen on the animation at the upper right hand corner of this blog post, where sea ice concentration is showing a very large blue patch of lower concentration on the Pacific side of the Arctic. That's because weather conditions conducive to melting shifted from the American side to the Siberian side of the Arctic, as was forecast two weeks ago.

Below an assessment of what's been happening in the past two weeks, and what is going to happen next week.

Sea ice area (SIA)

Here's the latest Cryosphere Today SIA chart, to which I've added preliminary data as calculated by Wipneus:

CT SIA recorded a huge 340K drop in one day. The last time a triple century break was recorded was in 2008. This brings the 2015 trend line right in the middle of the highest and lowest trend line in the 2006-2015 period.

ASI 2014 update 9: minimum around the corner

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 2005-2013 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.

September 14th 2014

The 2014 melting season is about to end. The end result is very similar to that of last year, despite large differences between both melting seasons. Last year the Arctic was dominated by persistent cyclones, keeping things cold and cloudy. This year there were more bouts of sunny weather, but it seems little heat was imported from lower latitudes. A lack of strong pressure gradients also caused relatively little movement and export, clearly to be seen on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, where in the last couple of years (even last year, see here) an onslaught had taken place.

At the same time, on the Pacific side of the Arctic, the ice that had been strengthened due to last year's rebound, managed to hold out through much of the melting season, although the late momentum seems to be sustaining the melting season now (together with weather, of course). Large areas of very thin ice and milky wisps in the Beaufort, Chukchi and Eastern Siberian Seas are disappearing, keeping many a trend line dropping on sea ice graphs.

But most of this weak ice will be saved by the bell, like we saw in 2010 and 2011, and the 2014 melting season will basically end up at the same level as last year and 2009. If not today, then later this week.

Sea ice area (SIA)

The season may already have turned the corner on the Cryosphere Today graph, after having dipped 71K below last year's minimum on the same date as last year:

Ever sailed to 85N?

Despite this being the second melting season that rebounds from the spectacular sea ice loss event of 2012, there have been some notable events that characterize this melting season. We may have already become used to these events, but may do well to remember that they were much rarer before 2007.

Take for instance, the Northern Sea Route that has opened up completely yet again, for the 7th year in a row. Shipping has been increasing there from year to year, and this year will probably be no different, given the following forecast for sea ice conditions in the second half of the navigation season:

Things look less easy in the Northwest Passage, where the main passage will probably remain closed again this year (after being open in 2007 and 2009-2012), although several yachts are making it through the southern route, such as Le Manguier (hat-tip to @arcticio):

But this year's main course is the sea ice in the Laptev Sea. Literally.

In previous melting seasons we had already witnessed a pronounced retreat of sea ice in this region of the Arctic. The event was quickly dubbed 'Laptev Bite', because that's what the open water grabbing its way towards the Pole looked like. But this year it's more than a bite. It's much wider and further into the pack, further than I have ever seen it go.

Arcticio sent me this animation that shows the progression of the retreat during August:

ASI 2014 update 8: neck and neck

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 2005-2013 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 24th 2014

Purely from a melting perspective - never mind the consequences which are already happening, or the way the public views AGW - this has been quite a boring melting season. It has some interesting features nevertheless, like the Northern Sea Route opening yet again and clear sailing up to 85N (more on that later this week). And we still don't have an answer to the question which of the two rebound years, 2013 and 2014, will end up with the lowest minimum. Which in itself is still kind of exciting.

The late momentum that started 2-3 weeks ago has kept ice decline steady, but it wasn't enough to cause massive drops. There was some compaction and quite a bit of melting on the Pacific side of the Arctic, but this was offset somewhat by refreezing melt ponds and a lack of transport on the Atlantic side of the Arctic. The momentum has now stopped building up, as insolation has practically stopped playing a role and the minimum will largely be determined by compaction and transport.

We'll have to see what the year of in situ melting can come up with as we enter the last few weeks of the melting season.

Sea ice area (SIA)

With that massive melt pond refreeze on the Pacific side of the Arctic, the 2014 trend line (on the Cryosphere Today graph) was highest in the 2005-2014 period for a couple of days, but has now started dropping again. According to Wipneus, who estimates the CT SIA numbers two days ahead on the ASIF, it will continue to do so, and thus will get closer to the 2013 trend line: