“Sorry Werther, mijn geheugen met naam spelling niet zo goed” It doesn’t matter Wayne, as long as your message comes through… (should see my grammar after having a good Chardonnay...)

I see no reason at all to change my own expectations on mean September SIE at 3,28 Mkm2. See the Forum for my reasons if you like. (See: Short to Medium Term Arctic Sea Ice Conditions Discussion)

I agree, Shawn, ASMR2 today has 38 open sea (less than 10% ice) pixels on it’s map. Coming from 6-8 a couple of days ago. The jpg-map pixel is about 80 km2. To cross-examine, I took to MODIS. I picked this detail: Some faint, high clouds stretch over the SW quadrant of the detail. Lots of open water. What looks like a floe (that's why I placed the ?; you can hardly call it a floe...) on the 1km resolution appears to be a cluttered collection of debris. Reminds me of Wayne’s description of this FYI rapidly being reduced into its original pancake forms of freezing up last September/October. It looks like the briny structure of these bits and pieces is easily falling apart in the new, dynamic properties of the CAB. The role of atmospheric temps hasn’t been very important up to today. As for the top ocean layer, I suspect it is rapidly collecting insolation now. Two days ago on the Forum, I estimated the grinded rubble to be between 65 and 150 cm thick. Now, I think it’s near the low side of that. When the warmth really kicks in, it will be gone in ten days.

Great story! Soon, it ‘ll be detail on the sidelines of the present drama. I’ve been noodling with bing translator a bit on the Russian “science evolution” site. Racing through the text I collected ‘… through thick more than 3 m ice…’, ‘… tense situation…danger of getting stuck…’. In August…. We know this, it’s no surprise to see the signs of a very different Arctic 1977 compared to today.

On June 2 I commented on ‘If this is real…’. After having scrutinized MODIS tile r04co4 I vented the bold impression that the whole FYI band in the CAB ‘is bound to melt out’. Although, meanwhile, PIOMAS has presented confusing data for May and SIA/SIE remain on the high side, after having watched all relevant MODIS tiles again tonight, I feel, hélas, restrained in my opinion. All our usual attitudes in data collection over the Arctic are deceiving us. This is a new world... The myriads of polynias have spread and grown. About 15% in size during the last nine days. Don’t mind all peripheral seas. It’s the CAB, stupid. We may be lucky to see the 1,8 MKm2 more or less ‘safe’ lead/mesh pack against the CAA surviving. The North Pole is at the rim. It ‘ll be a sad guess whether it will remain icebound. The CAM out there shows a big lead, like a sign of what’s to come…

No one, yet? Allright, good morning all, I’ll continue my sudden boost in presence… I did some CAD counting on the MODIS tile r04c04, the one with the persistent Low. I’ve digitized the most important open water poly’s in that ephemeral day 153 scene. Without pretence that I could get them all, I got 152, spread out over a 1000 km stretch, totalling about 2500 km2. That’s 16 km2 for the mean. The bigger ones. There’s enough to double that (if one could stick to the job…). 5K on a 1000K km2 isn’t much. I can’t check the CAPIE in the CAB. Pity, because that is where all these polynia’s and leads have formed. But I could fit the 2012 tile day 153. That was a good white swath of ice with the usual rubble filled leads, but no myriad of 16km2 poly’s. So what? I think at this stage SIA doesn’t represent serious indication of the state of the pack. For one, it overrated the ’12 blue ice in the Laptev Sea for day 153 for about 210K. For second, it does a comparable thing for the Bering Sea (fog?), about 60K. To me, it looks like the 628K lag for ’13 is deceptive. It must be more like 250K. For third, and after comparing the ASCAT for day 153, I get the impression that the whole FYI band in the CAB is bound to melt out. And as this awesome process has been prepared for the last three years, it may well happen whatever the weather conditions may be… PS hey, ASCAT shows that, indeed, the Goat's Head is now over (or 'on') the Pole. Could that temporarily prohibit open water there? And how long?

Meanwhile...take a look at MODIS r05c05 tile...it shows the Lena river flooding south of it's still iced lower bed. This marks the warm ridge over that river basin.

I guess a config like on 29 May ’13 can be found somewhere in the NCEP/NCAR archives. It is not the individual case that’s interesting. It is the slow repetition of peculiar configurations that line up. They do, with more and more amplitude, since (my estimate) the great Russian heatwave/Pakistan monsoon floods ’10. This is what I’ve used as a ‘ridge-count’since last September: For this, I use 500Mb, like you, Chris. The ridges seem to be more manifest under the Jet-level, about 3 km lower in the troposphere (the Jet ploughing on 9 km above the boreal region). Here’s the surface air temp with the jet as an overlay. There’s much less coordination.: The Pacific jet-field locks colder air over the Bering region. The troughs over Greenland, Europe and central Siberia feed colder than usual weather in south-central Siberia, France-Spain and mid-Greenland. Is this weird? No individual feature is. It is the line-up. And note, the CAB is not cold. And it didn’t get much ‘winter-power’ during the freezing season…

Morning all. Neven, thanks for the summary above on ‘reality’. To make more sense of the CRWS Jet stream analyses, it is instructive to overlay them on a 300Mb NCEP/NCAR Reanalyses graph. Did that for 29 May: Should be obvious, but reassuring to see the Geopotential heights nicely lining the black jet stream fields. The Polar dip in the heights (wouldn’t call it a P.Vortex anymore since April), the cut-off sinks over SW Europe and the NE Pacific PDO-basin, they’re all lining up pretty linear. Creating a strange pattern of ridges centred over Northern Scandinavia and Alaska. The jet seems to be only strong where there are large regional pressure/temp differences. It almost fades over the Atlantic, Central Asia. If this was just a single event, it wouldn’t be interesting. But these sort of weird patterns have been over us for some time now.

Forgot to mention that there seems still to be some cold left to create a nilas film in these overnight polynia's. You could call that 'ice formation...'.

MODIS shows ice circumstances on the Sib side of the Pole to be very transient. 50 km2 wide openings deform overnight, only popping up in other forms tens of km’s away. It all shows that there’s much ‘space’ in the pack. Comparing ’12 and ’13…at a glance, the Beaufort and CAB north of it looked worse then. The CAA and Laptev showed more blues. The Kara and Barentsz were much more ‘cleared’. Baffin Bay was further in it’s decay. But it’s the FYI in the CAB that’s looking set to perish… worse than ’12. IJIS and CT are deceptive…no offense, but these indicators are missing the unusual trip. Much like Sam described above at 19:46. But what does one expect with CO2 trailing above 400 ppm for five consecutive days last week?.

Watching MODIS r04c04 (CAB Laptev Side) and the adjacent tile r05c04 (north of Chukchi Sea), it’s clear that the grinding Low is laying out the bad quality of the pack. Not just rubble-filled, broad and traversing leads. A web of open ones too. There’s no ice formation anymore. The black open waters, sometimes 5 km wide, seem to indicate an upper ocean layer hostile to volume. This has to show in SIA soon. Maybe the large extent in the periphery hid the trend during the last few weeks. I agree with Chris Reynolds. The behaviour this spring is insignificant for the outcome. These variations fool us through the volatility of a system out of balance. I see others are noticing this, too... Green Octopus, Wanderer. Let's watch this close, it will soon unfold (I love some bombast).

Continuing laments on cold anomalies… I experienced ground frost around my house in the French Dordogne region last Sunday. Which is not impossible at the end of a clear night on 430 m ASL. But I have no recollection of that over the last eight years. I can’t stave an opinion, as I’ve not been following NH weather as close as I used to. But I’m inclined to think it’s all about changing patterns, weird atmospheric wave behaviour. As I suggested before, AGW could well be manifest in other niches than as pronounced in the Arctic as through the last few years. I noticed the Antarctic to be often anomalously warm these weeks. Still, MODIS shows this loose mesh structure all around the CAB. Don’t be fooled by extent in the periphery. Four weeks of unusual weather could wreck the pack.

Nice poll, Larry, My prognose for mean September extent as measured by NSIDC is 3,28 Mkm2, derived from my latest April prediction of 2,0 Mkm2 for SI Area minimum (3,13 for SIE and 2600 km3 SI Volume). The remains almost confined within the ‘arbitrary’ limits of MODIS tiles r03c03 and r04c04, the rest of the Arctic Ocean will be only good for lurking at unusual weather and algae patterns. I started off my prognosis in February, suggesting two modes (2,5 / 4,0 if ‘normal’, 1,7/2,6 if ‘dipole’). In two steps (down) I got to my present prediction. I have three main arguments: 1) mainly FYI 2) not enough winter power 3) Ice quality. Meanwhile, I expect the mediagenic consequences of accelerating changes in the ocean-atmosphere dynamics in parts of the mid-latitudes. It will still be difficult to get a grip on the whole picture, but this will become clearer… Happy to join up again. I’ve reset my blogging routines because I concluded it was affecting the quality of my work (and I expect my boss to be less tolerant than my wife). There’ll be less word-salad by Werther, but you can consider me watching…

R.Gates, an amazing discours… well done and really stimulating. Like Chris Reynolds, I’ve been noodling a bit with Squall Jet Stream animation and NCEP/NCAR while reading. Michael Splitt did mingle some doubt in my understanding, I have no immediate knowledge of the behaviour of large air masses (at least, not much more than high school basic physical Gay-Lussac stuff…). Squall hinted at some interesting interactions between the Subtropical and (very scattered) Polar Jet in the region. NCEP/NCAR showed 1000MB Omega anomalies out there (and over East Greenland BTW). Further, I’m still in the teleconnection thing… what about the other omega regions on your map: Szechuan and East Nepal? Could they contribute to ‘collision’ of warm tropical air and these Jets? It wouldn’t necessarily have to be warm air lifted in the Takla Makan, which, after all, is a ‘cold’ desert, in December for sure…

“It looks like the sea ice is in the process of a radical loss of integrity.” (Robertscribbler.wordpress.com | April 18, 2013 at 19:28 ) The temptation to re-publish a drawing dating back to June ’11 is too big: It is a part of the CAB day 163, showing large floes >16 km2. They amass up to 43% of this 90K km2. The rest was leads filled with rubble. This ice has long since left the CAB to die in the EGS. But it is illustrative of the “integrity” that’s now restrained to about 2 Mkm2 north of CAA and Greenland. The rest, FYI, is irrelevant, prone to melt out. If this loses “integrity” coming August, it’s over. I still wonder what kept it more or less together last year. I found suggestions by, I think, Lodger e.o. most convincing. The melting contributed to keep a top layer of the ocean of about 4Mkm2 in the CAB at -1.3 dC or lower. That’s why I think a repeat of ó7 dipole could be decisive (lots of sunshine...).

From what I experience, concern about climate change is generally covered up under thick layers of BAU worries on economy, Europe, senseless violence etc. Even in politically engaged green people’s circuits, most concern goes out to concrete, close to citizens health, lifestyle or food security matters. Generally, knowledge of the Arctic isn’t widespread or deep. Nor on geosciences. I guess people do soak up images through success- and beautiful film series like Planet Earth. At least some of the last episode on Frozen Earth might have made some mark? I’m not surprised. I’ve often felt a bit weird about my own preoccupations. I never met anyone sharing my obsessive interests in maps and landforms. I remember feeling completely alienized as my primary school teacher suggested I would arrange a ten question topography exam and pointed to the Finnish town of Tampere… In my opinion Al Gore’s movie was one of the best moments to get attention, if you would care to look around the small flaws any person exhibits while exposing on that level… There won’t be much more opportunities like that. A ‘The day after Tomorrow’ event is ludicrous and if so, would be immediately fatal, it wouldn’t be a case to worry about. Like a meteor full hit or a supervolcano. The nervewrecking aspect is the rubberband-effect… we’re confronted with processes that extrapolate on a three generations of peoples time frame. The rubberband (buffering capacity of the biosphere) is now stretched into inevitable realisation but we have a hard time making the connections and showing them unequivocally. To be able to, the audience would have to be interested and basically informed… the task isn’t even picked up by the Dutch education system. So let's get to work...

R.Gates, thanks for the explanation. In what does last winter show its singularity? The mechanism you point out looks the same, but shapes up in a different context. As I recall, the 500 hPa height has been anomalously high ever since mid-September, indicating a lessened gradient in pressure and heat content between the Equator and the Pole. Winter Power wasn’t strong north of the Polar Circle. The cold outbreaks haven’t been exceptionally frosty, although they lasted annoyingly long. It seems contradictory that mean 500 hPa height has been lower than the climo over Mongolia, but that was NTL a favoured sector for ridges to cling to. I’m looking forward to your further analysis and hope you can examine in what sense there’s a difference now?

Remko, I read your comments with pleasure. But, quoting from my rant triggered by the Overland/Wang letter ( the PIOMAS April 2013 extra update; posted April 13, 2013 at 10:23 ): “…we may have given them (systems within the biosphere) individual names, posed attributes to them, but do they ‘exist’ at all…” It is necessary for the communication to name these phenomena. But we should be careful to appoint the same meaning or attributes. What we categorize as the ‘Sudden Statospheric Warming” February 1989 is not easily compared to the events this past winter. I mean, these phenomena are temporary and regionally bound stages within complicated interdependent matrices. I see the danger in this thinking; blurring out all cause and effect, but that’s not where I want to go. What I would like to clear up (…) is that these phenomena evolve in a chaotically extrapolating theatre under forcing and a failing biosphere buffering capacity. What could be analysed about a category of phenomena in the past, doesn’t have the same value/meaning now anymore. To assess the rapid deterioration of biospheric systems, we can’t compare to snippets from the past on a one-on-one basis. One example is the assessment of last half year’s weirdness; the mix is unique.

Matt Owens, hi, I’ve just followed your link and saw the post on West Greenland snow cover. As I stated above, I intend to stick to concrete subjects(….). I just happened to collect 12 April MODIS images r02c02 around Kangerlussuaq and Sermeq Kujalleq. Couldn’t agree more; the sit around there is very, very different from former “MODIS”- years. Baffin Bay ice boundary shows lots of floes with clear melt-tinges, fjords show the blue-glassy aspect we know from the CAA/Laptev end of May. On a prelude to melt, things couldn’t look worse for West Greenland now.

The Overland/Wang letter ... After reading the abstract and a considerable part on three approaches to the challenge, I’m left with the feeling that we’re quite alone in the face of imminent danger. I may be an alarmist, a Cassandra case... The biosphere can not be sliced up into neat, parallel systems. They don’t function in an independent state. In fact, we may have given them individual names, posed attributes to them, but do they ‘exist’ at all? We view the world as a form, from which we carve out profit. Meanwhile, we have no idea of the meaning (I’m adressing myself, mostly...). Thus the representation accords to our confounded collective reality. One of our attributes/representations is the supposed uniform sensitivity of the biosphere to forcing. It is a creation of our licking, probing, overrated scientific method. In a way, this misses what several of our group have been calling ‘black swans’, or what Asimov once literated as ‘The Mule’. GCM’s are missing the intrinsic, immanent aspect of the Arctic and it’s sea ice. The process is inducing consequences; it shapes other forms and makes our uniform climate sensitivity useless for prognosis. Elegant mathematics are not going to get us out of the mess. The date of summer ice free, or our self-nominated numeric treshold on extent or volume are completely irrelevant. Consequences shape up to the synchronistic nature of existence. We witness them already; some gifted people (Dr. Francis comes to my mind, but there are more of course) hint at their interdependency. But, we want to be sure, to be in control... Dear friends, there’s no comfort in September extent staying above its numeric value last year. Forgive me if I’m way beyond my personal limits. I’ll back off to the Jakobshavn Isbrae, the Laptev scintillation and lurking MODIS. That’s how I can create my own little bit of meaning to what’s going on.

Evening SH, If you extract that conclusion from my ASCAT pic post above, yes, a larger part was pushed into the Beaufort direction. Don’t attach too much importance to the numbers. They’re just for comparison and have no true meaning. But if we’re talking comparative numbers… CAD shows the "area" mainly lost by the Fram Strait-express as app. 330K. The circulation/fragmentation into the Beaufort direction 499K. Keep in mind that the large part is still bound within the CAB. Just 104K is actually in the Beaufort Sea now:

A-team, hi, Nice pic, as usual! I've got the boundaries of a related area on CAD/ASCAT: The light blue line is 0101 2013. It spanned 1.81 Mkm2. The dark blue line is 0804, holding 1.98 Mkm2. This ice was what was left of the more or less coherent, "mesh-pattern" pack mid-September. June 2011 I digitized a part North of Greenland and found that just 40% consisted of unified floes larger than 15 km2. The rest of the area was rubble filled leads. That's why I think just about a third is good MYI now. The rest is MYI rubble frozen in again. That this area grew a bit during the last part of winter is due to the fragmentation you presented so well.

Thanks, R.Gates, Your summary of last winter fits nicely to what I´ve been following, but haven´t been able to show in graphuics )yet+ I tried on the Forum...). The part that really gets to me is the possible teleconnection(-s). You discreted well between the low sea ice effect and the SSW events. My alarmist concern is that at 400 ppm CO2 and accompanying, though lagged feedback, irreversible change has already occurred in atmospheric/oceanic distribution patterns...

Hi Phil, The ice floe rescue in the Gulf of Riga is one of these stories illustrating the impact of the blocking cold event we're witnessing. I'm on the SW tail of this transport band, in the Netherlands. Yesterday we had icebreakers (not the Healy kind, mind you) cracking one to two inch ice on lakes to make spring boat trips possible in the Easter-weekend. That's very unusual here. The extraordinary blocking is predicted by ECMWF to continue and even strengthen end of next week.