Hi A-Team, Peter Ellis is right about the processes of growth for MYI. Once sea ice is about 2 m thick, it is in thermal equilibrium between heat loss to the atmosphere above and heat gain from the ocean below. This particular ice floe was specifically chosen by Healy or Louis St. Laurent as the largest, thickest floe they could find in the target area (I haven't looked to see which ship deployed this buoy). That's so the floe survives as long as possible. It's not a random sample of the sea ice in the area. It's the thickest ice still remaining. The slabbing and thickening likely just happened years before the buoy was implanted. Don't expect average sea ice data from the buoy, but it does give us exactly what we need. That is, how is the thickest MYI surviving? -- Cheers, Lodger

Lillybrown wrote | April 19, 2013 at 09:21 "So when the arctic warms enough to weaken or extinguish the jet stream (can that happen?)" Hi Lilly, Polar night jet "The polar-night jet stream forms only during the winter months at around 60° latitude, but at a greater height than the polar jet, of about 80,000 feet (24,000 m). During these dark months the air high over the poles becomes much colder than the air over the equator. This difference in temperature gives rise to extreme air pressure differences in the stratosphere, which, when combined with the Coriolis effect, create the polar night jets, racing eastward at an altitude of about 30 miles (48 km). Inside the polar night jet is the polar vortex. The warmer air can only move along the edge of the polar vortex, but not enter it. Within the vortex, the cold polar air becomes cooler and cooler with neither warmer air from lower latitudes nor energy from the sun during the polar night." So this is what's happening now. The polar night jet breaks down, letting the cold out and the warm in. When the reserves of cold diminish, there are only weak temperature differences to drive this jet. I see a more pressing issue for you on the BC coast. How is the pine bark beetle infestation there? It seems a much more immediate threat to the way of life for a lumber town. Remember, the expansion of the tropics and temperate zones is a direct impact of climate change, and is driving the succession of temperate rainforest woodlands toward grasslands. You may get more traction with locals by discussing this issue. Don't expect them to like the answers. It's much easier to like a lie than hear the truth. Welcome to the blog. ;^) -- Cheers, Lodger

Furthermore, what makes you think the group of people that set out this plan 50 years ago to remove the Arctic ice cap will LET you restore it? Remember, "Corporations are people my friend". Cheers, Lodger

Again, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. The loss of the sea ice is the first domino to fall, but after that events will accelerate and become unstoppable: The Gulf Stream moves North Meridional heat transport increases polar jet stream stagnates droughts and floods become recurrent agriculture crashes Greenland melting accelerates Sea level rise accelerates Entire Nations fail destabilizing Regions Climate refugees spawn military conflict Corporations challenge Governments Breakdown of Government, fragmentation into regional fiefdoms and zones of anarchy Basically the worst parts of the bible, if you believe in that kind of stuff. If not, think of the 1940s x 10. An order of magnitude worse than WW2. That's what's at stake. Notice that at no point above do Governments move to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or reform land use practices? It's up to us, because they respond only to their masters, the monied special interests. 00 > \_ Here's more from Gwynne Dyer Dec 9, 2012: Coasting toward climate change disaster Regards, Lodger

Nimbus I satellite data from September 1963 has been retrieved, and is now available in a newly published paper (freely available PDF is here). Meier, W. N., D. Gallaher, and G. G. Campbell. "New estimates of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent during September 1964 from recovered Nimbus I satellite imagery." The Cryosphere Discuss 7 (2013): 35-53. New results are provided for end of Summer Arctic SIE (about the same as 1979-2000), and end of Winter Antarctic SIE (significantly higher than 1979-2000). Cheers, Lodger

Jim Williams wrote | April 14, 2013 at 16:10 "I guess Climatology Modelling is just doomed to be another dismal science along with Economics. We certainly Don't have anything like Newton's Laws here." Very close, Jim! It's more like Quantum Mechanics, where you can describe the rules of the games but there is an irreducible amount of random chance in every particular event. Chaos is a part of the universe, even though our human brains don't deal with it well. So here's an better analogy: Craps do you expect to win every time you roll the dice? would you play if you knew the dice were loaded? do you realize that if you keep rolling the dice, eventually you'll lose? do you blame the stickman when you crap out? Predicting Arctic sea ice decline due to climate change is easy: Soon, and dramatic. Predicting weather is just the craps. Cheers, Lodger

Hi Jim, We're not looking at actual global climate model outputs. Instead, we're given an ensemble result from numerous model runs. That's the heavy black line in the famous fig.4 from Stroeve et al., 2007. The thin, faint lines are the individual model runs of the ensemble members. The thick red line is historical observations: (click the image to get a PDF of the original paper) Notice that at least one of the models matches pretty well with the sea ice history. However, since that one is weighted the same as all other members of the ensemble, we say the prediction is wrong. To me, that just confirms only one model run will be the closest. Duh! But our criticism is based on the desire that the Ensemble Mean also match what happens in the real world (more in my next comment explaining why that can NEVER happen). I say NO! As long as the modeler has chosen a sufficiently wide range of parameters so that at least one ensemble member gets it right, then the modeler has done their job. What needs to be done next is to examine the parameters in detail, and choose the next set of models to form an ensemble mean close to the last successful model. Notice that in the 2007 projection, there are NO ensemble members that get close to zero SIE before 2050? Time to recompute! That's my take on what has happened, and how to proceed in the future. Still it takes courage and academic honesty to do this well. And I applaud the scientists who are doing it. -- Cheers, Lodger

Hi Richard, Visualize the impact of sea level rise in google earth. Cheers, Lodger

Hi A-Team, Overland, James E., and Muyin Wang. "Future regional Arctic sea ice declines." Geophysical Research Letters 34.17 (2007). From the Abstract: "Based on the selection of a subset models that closely simulate observed regional ice concentrations for 1979-1999, we find considerable evidence for loss of sea ice area of greater than 40% by 2050 in summer for the marginal seas of the Arctic basin." Hmm, just 5 year to a 50% decrease in SIE. It seems the De-Sanctification Process Has Begun!

Hi Espen, Freudian slips are bound to happen on the sea ice. ;^) "Armateur" it is! since fore-warned is four-armed.

Paul Beckwith wrote | April 04, 2013 at 23:16 "how can the pack possibly survive the frequent, severe, long-duration cyclones that were ripping into the pack last summer when the ice still had some cohesiveness?" Ooh, I know, I know! MAGICAL THINKING. Any sea ice that is transported South through Fram Strait automagically appears in Antarctica. It's true because i heared it on Faux & Fiends. ;^) -- Cheers, Lodger

IJIS SIE reported for 04,03,2013 is actually the 2-day average SIE April (02+03)/2. You ARE NOT calculating daily loss in SIE unless you also factor in the loss over the previous 2-day report (which covers 01 & 02 April). Only then can you solve for the overlapping day. Additionally, we are lucky in that 2-day avg SIE changed only 4687 km^2 with the Apr 2nd report. This tightly constrains SIE loss for the single day Apr 3. Let's do the math based on the 2 day average SIE change to solve for N, the daily loss on Apr 3rd, 2013: ( 4687 + N ) / 2 = -210937 Solving for N, we get -426,561 km^2 as an approximation for single-day change in SIE for April 3, 2013. Now you ask, is this credible. Short answer, yes. There are 3 large deep lows in Arctic peripheral sea right now: one on the Labrador coast, blowing onto the Labrador sea one in the Southern Aleutian archipelago blowing into the Bering sea and one in the sea of Okhotsk blowing onshore Each of these areas sustained dramatic retreats of the sea ice edge during Apr 3rd. Make your own animation (with SLP or wind field overlays) with the IJIS Sea Ice Monitor. Another prediction: if the winds are sustained (i haven't looked yet ;^) then any IJIS revision for Apr 3 will result in lower SIE. -- Cheers, Lodger

Tor Bejnar wrote | April 04, 2013 at 01:15 "This movement trend will lead to less thick ice going out the Fram." Sorry but No, Tor. Just the opposite has occurred this Winter. Look at the bottom image from the Apr 2, 2013 NSIDC update: (click this image to see full-rez 800x1622) It shows clearly that about 25% of the MYI remaining on Dec 2nd was advected from the Central Arctic through Fram strait by Mar 28. This occurred in less than 4 months, and the process is ongoing. Compare this with climate models that assume an annual figure of 10% advection of MYI, and you will understand that we are witnessing the Arctic sea ice death spiral. The drain is Fram strait, and it is unplugged. -- Cheers, Lodger

Villabolo wrote | April 01, 2013 at 02:37 "Arctic loses ice, we lose crops." Hi Villabolo, Here's a hit from the past, an oldie but a goodie. See if any of this rings true: "As the ice pack recedes, storm tracks go farther north and midlatitude rainfall patterns shift eastward." J. O. Fletcher (1968) "The Polar Ocean and World Climate" The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California. Seems that scientists knew 45 years ago the general effects of Arctic sea ice loss: Storms move North, and drought in the Great Plains. hmm...

I agree with A-Team, as I stated here on June 29, 2010: "The drop in sea ice area is impressive. More impressive is the date it occurred. The Arctic Basin began its annual melt about 12 days earlier than 2009. (look at the far left of the Arctic Basin graph). Earlier onset of melt allows loss of more ice. Later freeze-up allows less to regrow. When the length of the melt season passes a tipping point, Arctic Basin ice will be unable to recover and we will soon have a seasonally ice free Arctic (I estimate 2013). If other feedbacks continue to extent the range of melt/freeze dates, we will have a perennially ice free Arctic Ocean (a recent paper said perhaps only decades from now). Then, when summer SST's reach 28C, we will see Arctic hurricanes. How's that for alarmist?" The time for scientific reticence has long past. We have entered the period of consequences. Well, a slight revision to my stance after Aug 6, 2012. I am now aware of the dynamics of both warm-core and cold-core cyclones. Both are heat difference engines. I expect the cold-core variety to continue until the last cold stores are used up. Then a quick transition in Arctic SSTs, followed shortly by true Atlantic-style warm-core hurricanes in the Central Basin. The 2012 melt season proved that Summer weather no longer matters in predicting sea ice decline. One only needs a calendar. Still, we are missing one piece of diagnostic information that would resolve much of the uncertainty in predicting the 1st sea ice-free Summer: Atlantic heat influx. Petajoules lurk therein, but not ignored by the sea ice. Hint: Until recently, there were 4 ice shelves on Ellesmere Island. They didn't melt from the Sun. Now that they're gone, what is the next coldest sink in the Arctic?

@Llosmith57 | March 31, 2013 at 05:54 "Was there an earthquake?" No. The full moon was a couple days ago. We saw similar results after the last new moon. Together, these two events are the strongest Spring tides of the season. -- Cheers, Lodger

A-Team wrote: March 26, 2013 at 12:22 "Indeed the ice is two meters thick in the pink regions, according to the Navy"Hi A-Team, You probably should not place much analytic weight on the Navy thickness charts. The purpose of these charts is primarily navigational, so the main focus to to capture maximum thickness that may be encountered over a broad region. Similar to Aviation sectional charts, but for Subs. Indeed, the modeling is very simple, depending on predicted winds, and historic forcings from 1980. Think worst-case situation, when you're responsible for a $3B strategic asset. -- Cheers, Lodger

Hi Werther, After the minimum there IS no FYI, since any ice remaining is the surviving sea ice. By definition, it is all MYI. So if we again simplify to 2 categories of sea ice, we can focus on the trend in MYI. That's the curve fitting that hasn't been done. :^) -- Cheers, Lodger

Neven, could you please check the Spam box for my comment posted moments ago? -- Cheers, Lodger

sofouuk, they're called 'concern trolls' and you are feeding them. Let's just agree to stop.

Hi Villabolo, The Mar 15 meteor did not even fracture the ice of the lake that it hit. Which is 5,650 km from Barrow, Alaska where the cracks started. 13 days BEFORE the meteor strike... When a 1st-time commenter comes in here spewing this kind of denialist claptrap, just let it go. You don't need to respond. This isn't that kind of blog. PLEASE, do not feed the trolls! -- Cheers, Lodger

A-Team wrote | March 15, 2013 at 23:08 "another is pursuing the satellite's swath pattern for a more accurate time-stamp than a calendar day" Hi A-Team, I'm not certain which satellite you are referring to, since it's not explicitly mentioned in your latest comments. However, if the sensor is part of the "A-Train" satellite constellation, then it's pretty straight-forward. Their heliosynchronous orbits mean that these satellites cross the equator on their ascending node at 1:30 PM local solar time (which is why MODIS visual imagery is so consistent, because the solar angle is always very similar). The orbital period for the A-Train is about 98.4 minutes (14.5625 orbits per day), in this order: GCOM-W1 (SHIZUKU), host for AMSR-2, lead spacecraft in formation Aqua, runs 4 minutes behind GCOM-W1 CloudSat runs 2 minutes and 30 seconds behind Aqua CALIPSO follows CloudSat by no more than 15 seconds Else, we can get NORAD "two-line elements"(TLE) for other birds. But I think using daily data spacing is appropriate for our purposes, since the sea ice moves just 1-2 km/hr. Hope this helps. 8^) Cheers, Lodger

Hi Neven, A quick Google finds your Jun 17, 2011 post: Nares Bridge is falling down Cheers, Lodger

Hi A-team, (lot's o'crickets in 'ere, wot? ;^) Here's my comments on AMSR-2 regular observations and the Spinup plan, from Aug 10, 2012: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/arctic-summer-storm-open-thread/comments/page/1/#comment-6a0133f03a1e37970b0177440bf9c9970d It's my opinion that significant ridging can only occur in MYI, which has the mechanical strength to resist further breakup, and the thermodynamic energy content to resist melting. Specifically, when new salty sea ice is subducted, it melts down to the level of the old ice keel. First year ice can not grow much beyond its thermodynamic equilibrium depth. Good work on the new gyre images. Thanks! Cheers, Lodger

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