Vsaluki, Mark, and others new to Neven’s ASIB. Welcome, you have come to the right place. I do, however, need to warn you that you are in danger of becoming like me. And yes I am an ‘old white man’. I am also a Christian, Republican, and Texan. After reading this blog for over 3 years I have joined: Neven, 97% of scientist, and 100% of the leaders of the 5 most popular religious faiths in the conviction that we are causing climate change and that, if we do not change our life style, future generations will suffer horribly for our actions. So here is your danger. If you continue to read the blog you will come to see the shallowness of arguments from the likes of WUWT. You will also likely feel a moral obligation to change your life style as I have. Since I stumbled onto Neven’s blog I have spent over 100K to get my family on to renewable energy: solar panels, 2 Chevy Volts, better insulation, new air conditioner, and new windows. My investments will pay off, perhaps even in 5 years, and after that my family will be better off. So perhaps I have over hyped the danger of the blog - certainly less then the danger of ignorance. I only comment a few times a year, but do hope that you will continue with us. Perhaps I can give a word of encouragement more often. Looking forward to your thoughts.

Idunno, I have been following this deformed system for over a week, but at the 10hPa level. My take is that the cyclonic stretched portion over the pole is being reinforced by anti-cyclonic systems over the North Pacific and North Atlantic. Perhaps ocean energy venting from lower latitude is the driving force. No idea if this is common or not.

Arctic Cyclone Neven is my vote so more people can find the blog and then the truth. It is the high ground, and needed now. The next one this year can also come from the blog to avoid offending someone outside. Can we borrow from tropical nomenclature - Arctic depression and storm? Wind speed is used for these definitions – a good metric for damage. Arctic wind speeds will be a bit slower. In this way we will have Cyclones up to category 5. People can tie into this kind of name in a moment. I am not sure how Arctic anti-depression will go over, but an Anti-Cyclone of category 5 will be well understood. My vote is for Inuit names. I would like Inuit selection, but validation from others that the names are easy to say and rich in meaning. I hate those Icelandic Volcano names.

Susan, I very much value Jim as a commenter - one who has earned trust and respect. I lived in Florida for a few years and know from personal experience the fickle nature of cyclones. This cyclone should be something between a no-show weak graze to the Western side to the end of the Arctic as we have known it. Cyclones nearly always take an unexpected path with unexpected power. The cyclone will spread the ice where ever it goes, increasing area but with thinner ice. Jim may be right that area and extent may increase for a day or two. With strong ice in the past, the wave action was dampened. In today’s weak ice, wave action will bring up heat and salt from lower layers of water and will likely wash off ice and snow accumulation from the storm. The center this year is very weak. If this cyclone gets close to the center with power, I would expect a flash melt from the inside out, with a compaction wave moving outward destroying and compressing as it goes. The ice, pushed to the outside of the arctic, would have extra days to bask in the more Southern sun. I do hope Jim is right, and that this storm is not the return of the dragon king, GAC-2012.

Kate, If this cyclone becomes GAC-2013 we may see flash melting in the center of the CAB this coming week. If I have this right cyclones export away from the center. I will be on the watch, thanks for the warning.

A-Team, Thanks for the animation– beyond excellent. I hope that you can extend the animation for the rest of the season. I take the blue swirls over the ice to be clouds. If so, it would be nice to get the clouds over water to also be blue swirls. I can see the clockwise rotation you mentioned very well. Is the lack of rotation on the Greenland side indicative of compression? Regarding your “open channel” near Sevemaya Zemlya - The situation reminds me of the chunks that came loose last year in the Laptiv Sea late in the melt season. This year, with the weakness in the center, could we see larger breakaways, or even the center fracture and open? This fragmentation reminds me of how the Western Antarctic melts. If we see breakaways, as in your conjecture, then the average ice latitude may be further south, and keep extent dropping quickly for another month. On the general topic of export, I have been watching the channels in the CAA other than Nares on Hycom: http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictn_nowcast_anim30d.gif The animation suggests that export is happening on the western two channels. Is this real or just my fear? It looks like a lot of MYI is being exported towards the NW passage.

Right you are George. The atmosphere has: 99% 12C, 1% 13C, and a trace of 14C. 14C is made in the atmosphere from 12C by interaction with cosmic rays and has a ½ life of ~5730 years. 14C can be used with some degree of reliability for dating organic matter up to 60K years. Since the sources of carbon in the arctic are much older than the ½ life the 14C should be very low.

Anu said - “I'm sure the Planetary Leaders have detailed, wise plans to deal with the rapidly escalating situation”. When I read this I actually laughed. The comment did, however, make me think about who these leaders might be. Anu, thanks so much for writing, I really appreciate your courage to post, and in the end I may have been wrong to laugh and you may be correct. I thank every last one who has posted, including Joe Smith, and those who have read and are listening to this thread. So what leaders are taking us in the right direction? The first one that comes to mind is Neven. Yes, he has followers and raised $1K for the blog last year. Anu, don’t laugh, he really does have power. If Geoff Beacon right Neven’s site has power of a different kind, the strongest collective concentration of knowledge of the arctic in the world that is unshackled by ‘oversight’. However, the world is not listening, even with all our charts and graphs. I have discovered the “Planetary Leaders” who have power but not of our kind, who have spoken out on the issue of global warming caused by human activity, urging action to avoid severe consequences such as arctic melting. Like our blog, few are listening to these leaders regardless of their positions. These are the world religious leaders who can’t be voted out of office. I was really surprised at what these leaders have already said. Here is an introduction: His Holiness Benedict XVI, the green pope, influence 2000M Christians He walks the walk having established the Vatican as the first state in the world that uses 100% renewable energy. http://inhabitat.com/the-vatican-city-is-the-greenest-state-in-the-world/ His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, influence 400M Buddhists http://dalailama.com/messages/environment Has a full knowledge of the problem and also a solution, writes practical advice for non-Buddhists. The Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa, the green Mufti, influence 1500M Muslims http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/11/sheikh-ali-gomaa-green-muft/ Issues environmental Fatwa’s, polemical on non-violence, works extensively with Christians. How is it that the media never picks up on this leader? Reverend Dada J. P. Vaswani, influence 900M Hindus http://www.sadhuvaswani.org/wordpress/?p=3462 Very active at 94 years of age, outspoken on the environment So we do have ‘Planetary Leaders with wise plans’. These people have spoken and the world has not listened. Perhaps they need our power. For my 2 cents, if we invited these leaders to come to a place like Iceland and listen to Neven and several others who may be the best we have to share the meaning of the charts and graphs from this melt season, these leaders, and others of a like mind, might actually come, listen, and do what we have not the power to do. I for one need their help to forgive the “Planetary Leaders” who have not had such wise plans. If Neven should put forth a plan to wield his power of knowledge of the Arctic he shall have my 2 cents and more in support.

Neven, Still off topic from last week, but hidden in a shorter thread to avoid damaging the signal of the blog. Please open a separate thread for discussion on actions. What we saw last week needs a response. Last year, in response to your denial critics, you said ‘the ice will protect me’ - and so it has. Now we need to protect the ice. People who come to know what we have learned of the arctic will do something to help. I think that we can be trusted to maintain the standard of excellence established in technical threads. Perhaps a single exploratory thread could test the water.

NLPatents, Regarding your earlier post in preparint for your Shell Oil talking heads. Normally people would respond very quickly but we are at war. I would suggest adding the following points: 1. Conditions were set in the arctic for this storm since 2007. 2. East was hot all summer and expected to melt. 3. Fires in Siberia dropped ash that increased melt. 4. Methane may have contributed to heating. 5. Be sure to point people to the sea ice blog so they get exposed to the insights of the excellent commenters on Neven's blog. Regarding diple anomaly, it is a high pressure system over North America with a low over Russia resulting in clear sunny skys and melting weather over the arctic and also ice gets blown out of the arctic in the the North atlantic where it melts out. If we get the DA we will be able to see the damage. What you are doing is really important, covering the story of the year, while others cover trivia. Thanks so much for taking the time to understand what is happening.

Regarding Clathrates, could cyclones have the opposite effect, that is to say cooling them down. Heat is transported to the surface melting the ice. At the same time the bottom should get some cooling. Perhaps cyclones could hold Clathrates in place until the ice is gone. This would be a good thing since it would give us more time to respond. I bring up this possibility also since, if we see a slowing of Methane release, we can assure openminded people that the release will continue when the ice is gone. One problem is that the Methane sensitive areas already are ice free.

Paul Klemencic: Thanks so, so much for you insightful commentary on cyclone structure. I second your request to Steve Gregory for any expert help he can give in understanding arctic cyclones. By the way, I see that Nevin has a really good message on Joe Romm's website. I am really glad to see Joe give Nevin a front seat. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/

Paul, Just a note on cold core cyclones inspired by your hand drawn diagram on Monday. Cold core cyclones have an unstacked slanted core with a southern arm feeding in warm air and a northern arm feeding in cold air. Since GAC-2012 is over the pole the warm arm is spread around a 360 circle feeding a northern arm at the pole. This circular symmetry is different than extra-tropical cyclones further south. Given the polar location our current cyclone has the same dynamics and when it is displaced from the pole we should see the core slant with the top displaced north and the bottom south. If we see this slant it will give some confidence as to clasification.

Paul, Just a note on cold core cyclones inspired by your hand drawn diagram on Monday. Cold lower and upper core cyclones have an unstacked slanted core with a southern arm feeding in warm air and a northern arm feeding in cold air. Since Geegii is over the pole the warm arm is spread around a 360 circle feeding a northern arm at the pole. This circular symmetry is different than extra-tropical cyclones. Given the polar location our current cyclone has the same dynamics and when it is displaced from the pole we should see the core slant with the top displaced north and the bottom south. I hope this is what we have and not some new, undocumented, monster.

Looks like the Aiviq and Fennica have set sail from the Aleutian Islands. the Fennica is an ice breaker, like not needed now. Greenpeace may still be in the Chukchi with the Esperanza

Good to know that the rowers are safe! Another team is in the path of this storm. The Shell drill team started started installing anchors last Tuesday "in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska". As far as I can tell the "Arctic Challenge" is still at is first drill sit ~1000 miles North of Dutch Harbor. The US coast guard delayed the effort a month by insisting that the team be equiped to withstand a 100-year storm.

Neven, Can you report on the Beaufort and Chukchi regions. It looks like we have some flash melting in Beaufort. The Bremen graph of the Chukchi region looks like there has been 'a disturbance in the Force'. http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html

Just a thought, could the loss of ice mass be sufficently high to result in isostatic rebound and increase risk of quakes?

Crandles - Great post!!! Could export displace ice that is in a difficult to melt location? When I looked at the UB map today I see what looks like a wedge of ice pushing south in Fram. With weaker ice, could export cause more damage than in the past. Last year we had the suprise of flash melt, could we have flash export? http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html

Kevin - regarding the timing of the USA election and a new minimum with bubbling Methane like last year. Climate could take center stage in the last few weeks before the election. If this happens, it could finally give the next president and congress a mandate to take climate change seriously.