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Anyone know why the US sea ice area stuff hasn't updated in almost a week? Normally they dont' get more than 3 days behind.
(Maybe they don't like having their announcement of the minimum scooped?)
Pinpointing the minimum
UPDATE September 16th: Given another uptick and the current weather forecast, I'm ready to call the minimum for IJIS SIE V1 on September 12th at 5,000,313 km2. Apparently the high was too big and the pressure gradient too low to prolong things (see below). --- This blog post should perhaps ha...
While I'm still hoping that we get a nice cold fall and a reprieve from an ice free Arctic for a couple more years, I think anything still can happen.
The DMI sea surface pressure map is showing wind from the Barents Sea straight across the Arctic to the Bering Stait. Who knows what a warm strong wind from Europe might do to the ice pack if it persists for a few days ...
Not saying 2013 is going to break any records, but it might break a few hearts.
ASI 2013 update 7: cold and cloudy
During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) and IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2012 period (NSIDC has ...
Looks like the storm is expected to hover around the pole for the next 4 days.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/reforecast2/wx_maps/html/allmaps_f096_nh.html
Hopefully this is the end of the melt season above 80N, and the ice stays in good shape to build over the winter. (Fingers crossed)
Unfortunately, it looks like the Canadian archipelago will have a hot weekend and might melt out.
Third storm
Are we getting used to this? After the persistent cyclone in May and June, and the spiffy, but short-lived cyclone of two weeks ago, the Arctic is visited by yet another intense storm that goes below 980 hPa. In fact, according to Environment Canada it is currently at 976 hPa, which is lower tha...
Did area just drop by 400k? How close to a record is the June 6-June 7 area decline. (not to incur P-maker's ire) that low has refueled and is quite powerful. I'm expecting a post tropical low today which isn't nearly as deep. I think that May volume data will end up being a blip.
PIOMAS June 2013
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: After starting the year as the lowest on record, the 2013 trend line is now 425 and 901 km3 above th...
Hurray!
Finally some calming news from that infernal PIOMAS data. Now if only it would also start to get thicker.
PIOMAS June 2013
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: After starting the year as the lowest on record, the 2013 trend line is now 425 and 901 km3 above th...
In the tropics, it is my understanding that intense lows are fueled by evaporation of the rain, which then rises - fueling the low pressure system.
What is fueling the low here? Newly opened water? Melting?
Perhaps the arctic cyclones are growing to be a feature of the new normal?
If this is real...
As usual, it's all about the if. Allow me to explain what this is about: In the first Arctic Sea Ice update of the 2013 melting season that was posted a couple of days ago, I announced that a cyclone was forecasted to move over the Arctic Basin and stay there for a while. It's been there for a c...
I think the decline has decoupled from the annual variance, so I'm saying September mean = 3,000,000 km^2
Minimum should go below 3*10^6km^2
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...
My second favorite part of this blog - the links to data - is gone!
Wha' happen'd?
2012/2013 Winter Analysis
The melting season is about to shift one gear higher, and so I thought it'd be useful to have a comprehensive look at this past winter (just like we did last year). As we saw in this recent PIOMAS update, it seems that this year's conditions for ice formation were better over on the Siberian s...
about 130 days until the minimum (if we don't hit 0 sooner). Is there going to be a poll this year on what we think the minimum area/extent/volumes might be?
Or phrase differently - Neven, can we please have a poll on each of the above?
For my part, I'd like to put in the following guesses:
Area goes to 1.9-2.0 million km^2
Extent goes to 2.8-2.9 million km^2
Volume goes to 3000-3100 km^3
Sudden Stratospheric Warming: Causes & Effects
Introduction & Disclosure My name is Randall Gates Simpson. There is no PhD after my name and I am not a PhD climate scientist. I don't consider myself a traditional "expert" on the subject of SSW's because of my lack of official credentials. I do however think I probably know quite a bit more ...
I thought there was a concensus that we had passed the climate optimum and were on the downward trend towards a new ice age? I guess not. Reminds me of a Robert Frost poem:
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Melting of the Arctic sea ice
Below is a guest blog by Jos Hagelaars who regularly posts on Bart Verheggens Dutch-English climate blog. Jos has been a hot streak lately, looking back at how the Klotzbach 2009 Hot Spot paper is holding up, producing a new iconic graph called the Wheelchair (TM: Rabett inc.) and with his lat...
Questions:
1. What do people think the annual max will top out at this year? Any polls to be posted?
2. What happens to the Danish north of 80 2m average temperature chart when the ice cap melts? Will that shoot sky high?
3. What is the concensus on January PIOMAS? Was it cold enough to generate some good ice thickness this year?
Wipneus,
The Arctic on the Edge video was pretty neat. But talking about 100 years from now seems pretty conservative, no?
Open Thread February 2013
The previous open thread has gotten full enough, so here's a new one. We might want to kick off with this animation made by commenter A-Team: His comment: Don't miss this -- it's happening right now, by the hour -- so head on over to 80N 150W. A huge fracture has been opening a bit east of B...
Questions:
1. What do people think the annual max will top out at this year? Any polls to be posted?
2. What happens to the Danish north of 80 2m average temperature chart when the ice cap melts? Will that shoot sky high?
3. What is the concensus on January PIOMAS? Was it cold enough to generate some good ice thickness this year?
2012 record not due to GAC-2012
A new research paper by scientists of the Polar Science Center of the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington, has been published this week in the online version of Geophysical Research Letters. It's called The impact of an intense summer cyclone on 2012 Arctic sea ice retrea...
I'm a macro kind of guy, which is a long way of writing lazy.
Can someone with more patience explain whether the SSW event in the NH now will also ripple through and cause a July heat wave in corresponding latitudes. Are South Africa and Argentina also experiencing the ripple of the SH SSW in the same manner as Oz now?
Thanks
PIOMAS January 2013
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: 2012 has ended the year with a total volume that's around 1000 km3 less than 2010 and 2011, but ther...
Jan 1 1979 - 25000 km^3
Jan 1 2010 - 16000 km^3
Jan 1 2013 - 13000 km^3
Jan 1 2022 - 0 km^3
and forever thereafter unless something harsh enough to freeze it happens. (Heaven help us either way, I guess.)
This just doesn't seem correct. Will the ocean really have that much surface heat to avoid freezing even after 14 weeks without sunlight?
Hard to argue with this trend line through.
Looking for winter weirdness 5
From WattsUpWithThat (via Pierre Gosselin and Marc Morano): Increased evaporation combined with more heat loss in the Arctic due to a record low amount of Arctic sea ice is the likely cause. The likely cause of this: This graph is made and updated by the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab. Th...
Crandles,
I like your optimism. My little calculation does sound absurd.
And worse, as soon as you assign some non-zero probability (even one chance in a 10,000) that I am correct, you get the potential for insurable claims on the order of net present value of 100 Trillion in the next 50 to 70 years - almost all of the happening in a very tight timeframe.
It would become impossible to insure any building that did not take 7 metre sea level rise into account.
Will bet me 10,000 to 1 that I am wrong. I'll need to bet $100, because my house is within 10 metres of sea level, but all access is below.
;)
2012 Greenland records
Thanks go out to commenter Lanevn for bringing this to our attention. Some of the data concerning last summer's impact on the Greenland ice sheet has been released in a first paper by M. Tedesco, X. Fettweis, T Mote, J. Wahr, P. Alexander, J. Box, and B. Wouters: Evidence and analysis of 2012 G...
Or someone can check my math:
(wiki says ice sheet has "2,850,000 cubic kilometres" of ice)
1 m^3 = approx 1 tonnne
1 km^3 = 1 approx 1 Gt (ignore ice less dense than water)
So the whole thing is 2,850,000 Gt? I.e. a cubic kilometer is roughly a Gt of ice (take 10%?)
How long to lose half?
Integrate -570-30y = -1425000 and solve for y
570y+ 15y^2= -1425000
= (-570 +/- sqrt(570^2+4*15*1425000))/(2*15)= approx 400 years.
My expectation is that the acceleration is accelerating as suggested by Al. If an exponential fit is accurate. This is much more alarming. For instance:
1. if the rate of ice loss is doubling every 5 years, using the numbers above, half the ice sheet will be gone in 56 years and - of course -
all of it is gone 5 years later; or
2. if the rate of ice loss is doubling every 3 years, all of it is gone by 2050.
That would really suck. Ice levels would rise by 3.6 meters by 2068 (2045) and then by another 3.6 meters between 2068 (2046) and 2073 (2049).
The horrors of exponential growth. Let's hope there is another feedback loop yet to kick in and save us.
2012 Greenland records
Thanks go out to commenter Lanevn for bringing this to our attention. Some of the data concerning last summer's impact on the Greenland ice sheet has been released in a first paper by M. Tedesco, X. Fettweis, T Mote, J. Wahr, P. Alexander, J. Box, and B. Wouters: Evidence and analysis of 2012 G...
Can someone less lazy than I do the math? If the accelerated mass loss is 30Gt/yr^2; when has half the Greenland Ice "left the building" (i.e. raised the sea level)?
Thanks
2012 Greenland records
Thanks go out to commenter Lanevn for bringing this to our attention. Some of the data concerning last summer's impact on the Greenland ice sheet has been released in a first paper by M. Tedesco, X. Fettweis, T Mote, J. Wahr, P. Alexander, J. Box, and B. Wouters: Evidence and analysis of 2012 G...
Djprice,
Those are the 1-2% of global GDP questions, aren't they? What will the new normal be? How long will the new normal be the new normal? Now that we have to move all the cities and farms, where do we move them?
We had a beautiful summer here in Newfoundland due to the blocking high. Water 4-5 degrees warming than normal all summer - best summer in living memory. Of course, 2011 was the worst June-July in living memory. Are either of them the new normal?
Here's hoping Obama has his Lincoln moment on climate change, taxes carbon, and starts righting the ship.
As Sea Ice Declines, Winter Shifts in N. Alaska
As winter sets in, the Arctic Ocean freezes up. But because waters near the continental land masses warm up so much during the melting season (see for instance this image from August 11th 2012), they have to give off a lot of heat before they're cold enough to freeze. The waters warm up so muc...
Further to Artful Dodger's request for an open thread, can we have a thread for pre-December 31 predictions for sea ice minimums in 2013. Fiddling while Rome burns, yes, but still fun.
Arctic methane: Why the sea ice matters
Here's a video from the Arctic News blog, which is run by the people from AMEG (Arctic Methane Emergency Group). I'm not a big fan of geo-engineering, especially if it supports the continuation of business-as-usual, but as this video has some good speakers that dare speak of worst-case scenarios...
Anyone know why the October PIOMAS data isn't out yet?
CT SIA finally above -2 million km2 anomaly mark
After three full months the Cryosphere Today sea ice area anomaly trend line has finally left the zone below the 2 million square kilometre mark: As usual, Jim Pettit is serving the current statistical hors d'oeuvres: CT SIA area increased by 203k km2 yesterday; that was the fifth double centu...
Protege,
My understanding of the calculation is that you should consider the following
Grid point 1:
day 1 - day 25 = 0% ice
day 27-31 = 100% ice
Grid average = 5/31 ~= 0.161%
The ice extent greatly overstates the health of the ice in the Spring and the Fall, since a point with 100% ice for 5 days of the month is considered to have ice.
Wipneus, did I get this right?
Looking for winter weirdness 2
While the US East coast is preparing for an intensifying Sandy (Jeff Masters has all the info you could possibly want), Europe is being struck by a very early cold snap. According to German meteorologist Christoph Hartmann such early snows in Germany occur every 30 to 40 years (link).* Bulgar...
I stand my my prediction of first ice free day of August 24, 2016. By ice free, I'm saying less than 250km^3 ice per PIOMAS.
I'm backing the exponential curve for August, but just taking the guess that it doesn't quite make it until late in the month.
I'm convinced by Anthony, that the ice free in September will be very tough given that some ice will likely start to reform somewhere in that month.
Naive Predictions of 2013 Sea Ice
These predictions are naive in the sense that they are not based on a physical model, nor other measurements apart from the 30-odd year history of the index in question. Moreover, they are made a year in advance as winter freeze-up is just starting. The predictions are simply If ... Then stateme...
Interesting.
How about with exponential melting of ice volume? That seems to be the better predictor. Problem with gompertz, is that 0 ice is not a true 0, water keeps getting warmer after it melts.
Naive Predictions of 2013 Sea Ice
These predictions are naive in the sense that they are not based on a physical model, nor other measurements apart from the 30-odd year history of the index in question. Moreover, they are made a year in advance as winter freeze-up is just starting. The predictions are simply If ... Then stateme...
Vis-a-vis the exponential curve for volume, 2012 was almost a bit of a "recovery" year. When you look at last winter especially. I think we are at the point where annual variation will have a hard time overcoming the climate forcing and there will be records to the volume melt until its gone - absent some time of miraculous or catestrophic intervention.
PIOMAS October 2012 (minimum)
We already knew a few weeks ago that the PIOMAS sea ice volume record had been broken, but with the latest data release by the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington we now know the minimum sea ice volume for 2012, as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation...
Anyone have an inside track on the latest and greatest PIOMAS data. They must have had their minimum volume by now. The suspense is killing me. Did volume go much below 3400?
Obsessed minds want to know ...
ASI 2012 update 11: end or beginning?
During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) and Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2011 period (NSIDC has...
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