This is AmbiValent's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following AmbiValent's activity
AmbiValent
Recent Activity
It seems the conditions for Fram export are getting worse, both for ice coming from the Siberian and the Greenland side. But is there actually such a data trend, or is it just born from the fact that the Arctic Ocean used to be frozen further to the South compared to now?
PIOMAS May 2018
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: The maximum for sea ice volume was reached during April. According to the PIOMAS model, it peaked on ...
Now the question is whether this will remain an isolated phenomenon or help putting the Fram into export mode during the melting season...
Bering goes extreme
The melting season hasn't started in earnest yet, but it seems the Bering Sea hasn't received the memo. For almost the entire winter, sea ice has been reluctant to form there, and now that the Sun has returned, the ice edge has started to retreat to record high latitudes, past the Bering Strait ...
I've just looked at Wipneus' graphs with the February numbers already in them. It appears another cannonball like last year is heading our way. Last year we dodged one due to low export, but now?
Talk about unprecedented
In the preceding post on Global sea ice minimum records getting broken for the third year in a row, I mentioned how the situation on the Pacific side of the Arctic was quite unprecedented, with the sea ice graph for the Bering Sea showing a sharp downturn (and even a small one for the Chukchi Se...
And this year, there's more ice on the Atlantic periphery than 2012. I think it would tend to be 'easier' than ice in the CAB.
PIOMAS July 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Last month we finally received some good news from PIOMAS, and the good news continues this month. Wi...
The mid-month data looks like there's more ice volume now than in 2012 in Barents, Kara and Laptev, while there's less in the Central Arctic.
That could still mean less ice in the end, as it would mean more energy would go into melting the ice and less into warming water far away from the ice.
We'll have to wait and see...
PIOMAS June 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Finally some good news, relatively speaking. The cold that crept over the Arctic during the last week...
@navegante
"Eastermost" as in "next to the CAA"? But even then, it wouldn't be protected by a strong barrier that used to be there, it would be the remnants of such a barrier.
PIOMAS May 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: It's no surprise 2017 is still lowest on record, according to the PIOMAS model. If during the last we...
I have not much hope that a new record low volume can be avoided this year. But I see a good chance that next year won't be this bad, just as 2013 and 2014 stalled the downwards trend after the record low of 2012.
Of course, in the long or even medium term, the arctic ice will continue to shrink, but maybe the politicians have fully woken up to this development until then.
Oh... and I found these 2 pieces in the 2012 soundtrack (in the June 2012 blog comments):
Bright ice
"Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?
There's the Sun over the horizon,
A bright glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know how far it will go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?
Bright ice,
Melting goes higher.
Bright ice,
How can you crack and fail?
How can the ice that seemed so mighty
Suddenly seem so frail?
Bright ice..."
Blue ice
"Blue ice
Arctic's got blue ice
Like a deep blue sea
On a blue blue day
Blue ice
Arctic's got blue ice
When the morning comes
It'll melt away
And I say
Blue ice melting in the sun
Melting in the rain
Arctic's got blue ice
And it is gone, and it is gone
again"
PIOMAS May 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: It's no surprise 2017 is still lowest on record, according to the PIOMAS model. If during the last we...
According to Wipneus' graph for monthly average ice volume, the May trend curve fell below the March trend curve sometime around 2010. So it has been in the cards for some time that there would be an earlier volume peak.
PIOMAS March 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: There haven't been any major changes compared to last month, and that's good, because it means things...
Wipneus already has the new numbers. It looks like those who said that the exponential volume trend line from 2012 was highly irregular and should therefore be disregarded were wrong... PIOMAS volume is now below that old trend line again.
PIOMAS February 2017
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Things just keep getting worse. After this year's trend line went well below all others last month, I...
Is the ARC-HYCOM ice thickness map trustworthy in general? Although the other values (ice volume, area, extent) point to another rebound or at least remaining at 2013/2014 levels, the map shows less ice that's thicker than 2 meters (some of that had just thinned drastically in the Beaufort). If thick ice is waning, wouldn't that mean the arctic still becomes more vulnerable to weather events?
Junction June 2015
Melt pond May alliterates well and the name conveys what it's about: the time when melt ponds first start to form. Luckily, a couple of weeks ago, someone on the forum (forgot who, but thanks!) helped me find a perfect alliteration for June: Junction June. This name refers to the month's import...
Well sometimes you can't change and you can't choose.
And sometimes it seems you gain less than you lose.
Now we've got holes in our hearts, yeah we've got holes in our ice.
Well we've got holes, we've got holes but we carry on.
(I'm generally speechless about the "winner" idea and let the song speak instead)
Miscellanea
I have collected a couple of interesting news articles and interviews over the past few weeks, and now it's time to share with those of you who haven't seen them. I'm posting what I found the most interesting excerpts, follow the links if you want to read the rest. First up, an interview on Sci...
Chris,
I think SH was not arguing that an ice-free September wouldn't come soon, but that an ice-free March would rather take decades than years.
PIOMAS March 2014
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: During the month of February the gap between this year and the other years from the post-2010 period ...
Is it just me, or is this winter's not-freezing (or melting, or cracking) ignoring the peripheral seas (that will melt anyway) and going straight towards the central arctic via Fram and Bering?
PIOMAS March 2014
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: During the month of February the gap between this year and the other years from the post-2010 period ...
This winter's sea ice area maximum seems to have stayed below the minimal winter maximum so far. Also, the areas where the ice is "under attack" seem to be not just the periphery but rather the ice in the Svalbard and Bering areas. Or am I misreading this, and this situation is more common than I think and doesn't point to a new minimum in September?
Another ice extreme
In some quarters extreme weather events and broken records are presented as evidence that the climate isn't changing. That's a bit difficult to do with Arctic sea ice, of course (although they try*), but record Antarctic sea ice numbers fully compensate for this, right? The 2013/2014 Arctic win...
It's a rather amateurish interpretation. I just thought that Beaufort and Chukchi were the areas where the ice broke apart in winter and froze together again (with the interim open water contributing to areas with thin ice cover). And ice would have only compacted if pushed against land, be it islands or the coast (or the MYI, which leans against Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago), and the yellow areas seem not too far away from those areas now (months after the supposed formation).
But I'm curious about what the experts will say.
So, how slow was this start?
It's half time in the Arctic, and with the Summer Solstice and the first half of the melting season behind us, it's time for an assessment. It's clear that PAC-2013, this year's persistent Arctic cyclone, kept the Arctic in a cold and cloudy grip, causing a very slow start to the melting seaso...
So the orange areas are the MYI remnants, the yellow ones are compacted FYI, and the rest is more or less rotten ice?
So, how slow was this start?
It's half time in the Arctic, and with the Summer Solstice and the first half of the melting season behind us, it's time for an assessment. It's clear that PAC-2013, this year's persistent Arctic cyclone, kept the Arctic in a cold and cloudy grip, causing a very slow start to the melting seaso...
I think 2.8 for PIOMAS minimum. Extent and area are much less certain, since there will be likely a lot of thin ice at minimum which could also melt. But I'll make a blind guess at 2.8 mio km^2 extent.
Crowd-Source Prediction of Minimum Arctic Sea Ice
How does the collective wisdom of Arctic Sea Ice blog participants compare with expert scientific analysis in forecasting the September sea ice extent? This question seems worth exploring with a crowd-source experiment. You are all invited to submit, as comments to this post, your best guess for...
At first glance, the area and extent numbers don't look bad. Unfortunately, all the other news and images more than makes up for that. And it's only the beginning of melt season...
o/~ My feelings can't reach you, Our bonds being torn apart
The clouds drift away regardlessly on a
Grey Wednesday
Now, remember the spectacular past
When everything was bright, when you fell in love
Now, remember the time we loved each other
When we stared into each other's eyes
Now, remember the spectacular past
When you lived for a dream, when you loved each other o/~
Looking for winter weirdness 6
I wasn't expecting another instalment in this year's series of blog posts on Winter Weirdness, extreme weather events that could be linked to the decline in Arctic sea ice. It's not even winter anymore officially. But as spring has been revoked in large parts of Europe, and the atmospheric blo...
More rain doesn't automatically mean more farmland. There are several stages in between until the ground would be fit for farming. If you want to speed that up, maybe the best fitting word for what is needed is not just "irrigation" but rather "terraforming".
The bunny explains
It started one and a half year ago with the suspension of Arctic scientist Charles Monnett, which quickly turned out to be a Kafkaesque witch hunt. It is becoming increasingly clear that the 'investigation' was fuelled by fossil fuel, and the person that explains the whole saga best is none othe...
And as Wipneus shows, for 2013 zero is within the error range for the volume minimum... (although it takes 2 or 3 more years for zero to become likely)
PIOMAS December 2012
Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center: Last month I wrote: The 2012 trend line isn't quite hugging the 2011 trend line as much as the latt...
I think certain people just don't want to listen. You will probably have the best chance to get to some of them if they're not from fossil-fuel-rich regions and tell them temperatures are going up, and it's best if they start developing green technology because in the future everyone will want them, and they'd get lots of jobs if they've got the best green technology.
If you like this petition, sign it and spread the word: http://wh.gov/Xg5R (Does not contain secession!)
Climate Dialogue, a new depolarizing initiative
Following the Climategate non-scandal some Dutch politicians deemed it necessary for skeptics to have a more prominent say in matters, regardless of merit or reputation. Out of this evolved an initiative called Climate Dialogue. As the editors of Climate Dialogue write in this guest blog post ...
Espen,
it looks a bit like a man with wings... Icarus flew too close too the sun and his wings melted, so he fell to his death...
Arctic ice melt = 20 years of CO2 emissions
With records being shattered all over the place, some names in the cryospheric community are gaining in prominence. One of those names is Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics at the University of Cambridge, who has been predicting for years the things we are currently witnessing. He alrea...
@21:54
Translation:
Black Swan: an anomaly, followed by a return to the old normal.
Dragon King: may look like an anomaly at first, but is a paradigm change, a switch to a new normal.
More details on PIOMAS volume loss
Quite soon after the inception of this blog, data from the PIOMAS model became a prominent element in discussions on ice thickness and volume. Though corroborated by on-the-ground observations and satellite data, PIOMAS remained a model and so practically everyone was careful in not attaching to...
Exponential and gompertz curves barely differed at all for the past, only really diverging in 2011. So R^2 values would naturally be close as well. I clearly favor exponential only because I see the point where all ice has melted not as a wall (from which you can only go backwards to having ice again) but as a borderline between icy seas and warming seas.
Naive Predictions of 2012 Sea Ice
Last year I proposed Gompertz curves as naive, black-box models for predicting mean September Arctic sea ice extent, area or volume. Here's how that worked out: Sep 2011 Sep 2011 Predicted Observed NSIDC extent ...
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/sia_10.png
(forgot to include the graph, sorry)
Record dominoes 9: PIOMAS sea ice volume
The people from PIOMAS have done an extra data release (there'll be another one next week for all of the August data). This data shows us that yet another record domino has fallen, after so many others already. This is one of the biggest dominoes out there, especially now that observational data...
More...
Subscribe to AmbiValent’s Recent Activity