Arctic Sea Ice

Don't forget the ASIG

In the past few weeks I've been gradually updating the Arctic Sea Ice Graphs website, a collection of all imaginable graphs and maps concerning the Arctic and its sea ice out there.

The biggest change has been the inclusion of a new Forecasts page that has maps showing what the forecast is for sea level pressure, temperature (anomaly) and some other things, for the next 7 days. Most of these maps are provided by the excellent and visually appealing Climate Reanalyzer website*.

This new page replaces the SLP Patterns page
that I had introduced to compare 6-day average atmospheric set-ups between years, but was too much work to update. It can still be accessed for anyone who wants to have a look, but I won't be updating it any longer.

I have been updating the ASIG's homepage where all the daily updated graphs and maps are situated. They are all grouped together according to category on the right hand side: sea ice concentration, sea ice extent & area, sea surface temperature, surface air temperature, sea level pressure & jet stream, buoys & sea ice drift, sea ice thickness, volume & age, Greenland ice, snow cover and miscellaneous.

On the Regional Graphs page I've added two excellent overviews, produced by the prolific Wipneus, that show regional graphs in one clear overview, extent and area, comparing current trend lines with those of 2012, 2013 and 2014, based on high resolution University of Hamburg data. Like the forecasts all together on one page, this is another huge time saver.

I've added the latest North Pole webcam images to the Webcams page.

Finally, I have updated the Concentration Maps page which makes it easy to compare the current sea ice concentration map produced by the University of Bremen to those of other years. As I don't want to show more than 8 maps, I had to decide which melting season not to show, and opted for 2009.

I hope you find the ASIG useful. For me it's the place where my day starts and ends, as it's all there.

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* Recently the people behind the Climate Reanalyzer website have added a daily reanalysis maps page where you can go back in time and see what the weather was like in the Arctic (various parameters) all the way back to 1979. Yet another awesome feature on perhaps the best weather site out there.

Webcam art

Every now and again the North Pole webcams produce beautiful images (like last year). This one is a bit artsy:

When will the first puddles show up, I wonder?

Through the eyes of Healy

This is a translation of a blog post on the excellent Spanish blog on Arctic sea ice called Diablobanquisa:

Towards the North Pole aboard the Healy

We go aboard the icebreaker USCGC Healy again...

...to travel from the Alaskan coast almost all the way to the North Pole.

Its position and route can be seen on this map, which is updated here [I have overlaid the image with a sea ice concentration map to give an idea, N.]:

On this web page we find all the images that are shot on an hourly basis by a webcam aboard the icebreaker Healy. It's a great opportunity to travel, almost live, across the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole, and have a look at the actual state of the Arctic sea ice pack, that is only a few days away from this summer's minimum extent.

On August 21st the USCGC Healy leaves the Alaskan coast behind and sails off into a Beaufort Sea (at 71ºN) that is entirely free of ice:

Death of a webcam

These are not good days to be a webcam. That is, if you're deployed on a buoy in the Arctic.

Of course, NOAA webcam 1 has been sagging for a while now:

And NOAA webcam 2 has just decided to topple over backwards:

But that's nothing compared to webcam #2 from the Obuoy project that is currently gazing at the sky with lifeless eyes:

2011 webcam puddles

There has been some speculation about this since yesterday, but Paolo has confirmed that the first puddles of melted snow can be seen on images of NOAA's Arctic StarDot NetCam #1 that is located at the North Pole:

NOAA webcam 2 is also showing some dark patches:

This is a few days earlier than last year, and according to this NOAA webpage the earliest date since they began deploying the webcams on a yearly basis:

USCGC Healy is nearing 80N

The USCGC Healy has been going to and fro through the Beaufort Sea to map out the seabed, but as it has sailed northward again and entered water with high sea ice concentration, I figured it was time for a follow-up to the last blog post concerning Healy.

Here's a picture from this morning from the ship's ALOFTCON webcam:

 

This is their position superimposed on the sea ice concentration map from the University of Bremen:

USCGC Healy has entered

As Lodger/Artful Dodger has just informed us, USCGC Healy, the US Coast Guard's newest and most technologically advanced polar icebreaker that is designed to conduct a wide range of research activities has entered the ice pack in the Beaufort Sea. Here are the first pictures:

 

A webcam with a view

I do not intend to put up pictures of the remaining North Pole webcam every night, but this latest image struck me as particularly beautiful:

 

Click on the link or the image for a larger version. 

In the comment section siili posted another nice picture from the USCGC Healy:

Run, rabbit, run

The sun looks to be getting lower:

 

Run, rabbit, run

Dig that hole

Forget the sun

;-)

Maybe now the great Eli will finally honour me with a visit...

Webcam puddles

As Lord Soth has pointed out in the latest SIE update one of the NOAA webcams at the North Pole is showing what looks like a melt pond.

Click the image for a larger version or click here for a live version.

The other webcam is not showing any puddles as of yet. Update June 26th: it does now...

Here's a map of the current position of the webcams. POPS-13 (green) is for the webcam showing the puddles, the PAWS buoy (red) corresponds to webcam nr 2:

 

Someone sent me a great link to compare these webcam pictures to images from previous years.