2011 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

[CapelDodger]

Is anybody covering the winter maximum extent? How much does it bounce back each year, is it changing, and are there trends? If so, do the winter max trends align with summer min trends?

It would be very odd if they did. The winter maximum is basically defined as the surface available - where the Sun goes down for months on end there will be ice. As Pixel42 pointed out, that area is limited by the surrounding land. The summer minimum is a very different matter, much more variable and only limited by zero.

 

[casebro]

So you are saying that the winter maximum is still pretty much hitting it's maximum?

I suppose we are getting fewer icebergs in the northern oceans though? If less winter ice can get forced through the channels between land masses?

 

[BenBurch]

So you are saying that the winter maximum is still pretty much hitting it's maximum?

I suppose we are getting fewer icebergs in the northern oceans though? If less winter ice can get forced through the channels between land masses?

Yes, until the day comes when the polar basin is not frozen from one side to the other every winter.

Where we are losing in winter is mostly outside of the Arctic Ocean proper.

Icebergs in the shipping lanes in the Atlantic most often come from Greenland's landed ice, if I understand correctly.

 

[Pixel42]

So you are saying that the winter maximum is still pretty much hitting it's maximum?

There's a definite downward trend, but it's not as dramatic as the summer minimum one.

From the link I gave you:

]

 

[macdoc]

March 2011 had the second-lowest ice extent for the month in the satellite record, after 2006. Including 2011, the March trend in sea ice extent is now at -2.7 percent per decade.

That compares to a reduction in the summer minimum extent of about 11% per decade. Bear in mind that in winter the ice expands until it fills the Arctic Ocean and in a lot of directions it hits land fairly quickly, and hence cannot expand any further

.

what would happen is thickening, and re-establishment of ice shelves an multi-year ice- none of which is occurring.

Most of the northern ice shelves ..

Collapse of ancient Ellesmere ice shelf stuns scientists

“The ice seems to be fracturing all over the Arctic once again”

SPECIAL TO NUNATSIAQ NEWS http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/pub/photos/nasa-modis-wardhunt100818.jpg
This NASA image shows the section of the Ward Hunt ice shelf which recently broke off. (IMAGE/NASA)
MARGARET MUNRO
POSTMEDIA NEWS
A huge chunk of ice about the size of Bermuda has cracked off Canada’s largest remaining Arctic ice shelf. The ancient slab of ice, measuring about 50 square kilometres in area and almost 400 metres thick, broke away from the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island’s northern coast last week, the Canadian Ice Service said Aug. 25.
“The whole northeast quarter seems to have gone,” said Trudy Wohlleben, a senior ice forecaster at the service, who first noticed cracks developing on the shelf in early August. Satellite images over the last week have confirmed the huge chunk of ancient ice shelf has broken away, she says.
The breakup points to the profound change underway in the Arctic and the accelerating loss of a unique and “majestic” part of Canada’s landscape, says John England, University of Alberta earth scientist.
The Ward Hunt is the largest of the remaining ice shelves that have clung to Ellesmere Island for 3,000 to 5,000 years. They contain the oldest sea ice in the northern hemisphere, England says, and have no counterpart in Greenland or Russia.

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stori..._ancient_ellesmere_ice_shelf_stuns_scientists

..some in existence for thousnds of years are entirely gone.

In addition to thinner new ice, much of that is actually a slush that while it might fool the satellite....the boots on the ground people were shocked.

This fall, Dr. David Barber and his colleagues were cruising the western Arctic Ocean in the icebreaker/research ship CCGS Amundsen to study multi-year sea ice, the kind that has formed the permanent ice cap in the Arctic for hundreds of thousands of years. They were guided by satellite observations that suggested that solid ice was present throughout this part of the Arctic. What they saw instead was something Dr. Barber says he's never observed before - broken, slushy, decayed ice with a thin veneer of harder ice over it, which their ship pushed through as if it wasn't there. This new kind of ice had fooled the satellites, and suggests that the permanent Arctic ice cover is in even more trouble than had been previously thought.

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/episode/20...fish-dads-taking-leave-of-the-maple-reactors/

As the Pacific currents sweep through bringing more heat this process is accelerating and beyond that measured by the satellites.....
Were the Arctic not so land bound...I'd guess it would be open already half the year.....the area has been consistently warmer than the continents in the past decade.

Warm Arctic - Cold Continents"

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Nick Sundt
Arctic sees second lowest November sea ice extent on record, favoring another cold season of extremes in mid-latitudes. The impacts of climate change in the Arctic now appear to be spilling well beyond the region to affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people living in more temperate regions to the south.

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2010/12/07/warm-arctic-cold-continents/

Once has to be in serious lalaland to be in denial of AGW these days and the Arctic is indeed one lustily singing canary ....more so than we can accurately measure.....but the inhabitants know.....human and other mammals...

good read this entire article

Similarly, the entire Arctic ecosystem is in a graceful equilibrium. The effects of climate change are predicted to disrupt the Arctic ecosystem earliest and most dramatically. Arctic sea ice, snow cover, tundra, and permafrost, and subsequently the organisms that rely upon them, are highly vulnerable to climatic variation. While much of the world is dealing with probable future disasters, in the Arctic substantial decreases in sea ice, increased precipitation in the form of rain, and a shift in the timing and predictability of weather events have been already documented.

http://www.climate.org/topics/climate-change/reindeer-climate-change.html

The hydrology aspect is here and now and has impacts extending deep into the continent with increased snow packs creating massive record breaking flood conditions.
Interesting times....

 

[aleCcowaN]

It seems the whole region was under a circulation pattern during last June similar to the dipole anomaly. The high pressures were over Greenland instead of the great prairies in Canada (O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux! ... Congratulations on your day) and the States.

pressure anomalies for 1-26 jun 2011

temperature anomalies, same period

Data of Sea Ice Extent

The latest value : 9,147,969 km2 (June 30, 2011)

 

[lomiller]

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of solid icepack at this point, which may not bode well for multi-year ice. I wonder if you could sail a polar route following ice leads.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png

 

[BenBurch]

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of solid icepack at this point, which may not bode well for multi-year ice. I wonder if you could sail a polar route following ice leads.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png

Clearly you could. Amundsen did, though the passage took years. Would be much easier now.

 

[lomiller]

Clearly you could. Amundsen did, though the passage took years. Would be much easier now.

I wasn’t referring to the Northwest Passage, I was thinking more or less straight over the North Pole. I’m guessing it would simply take to long even if there was enough open water, but it doesn’t look like there is a lot of truly solid icepack in the arctic.

 

[CapelDodger]

Slightly tangential :-

Warming Ocean Layers Will Undermine Polar Ice Sheets, Climate Models Show
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110703133838.htm

(Substitute "May" and "Suggest" for "Will" and "Show" and you get a decent headline. ScienceDaily is a great source of news, but it really can irritate sometimes.)

"The subsurface ocean layers surrounding the polar ice sheets will warm substantially as global warming progresses, the scientists found. In addition to being exposed to warming air, underwater portions of the polar ice sheets and glaciers will be bathed in warming seawater.

The subsurface ocean along the Greenland coast could increase as much as 3.6 °F (2 °C) by 2100."

Given the increased observation of Greenland ice in the last decade any such effect should be visible soon, if it isn't already. The retreat rate of floating glaciers has certainly been greater than expected back when glaciology was a very slow-moving scientific backwater.

 

[CapelDodger]

I wasn’t referring to the Northwest Passage, I was thinking more or less straight over the North Pole. I’m guessing it would simply take to long even if there was enough open water, but it doesn’t look like there is a lot of truly solid icepack in the arctic.

I wouldn't volunteer to drag a sled across it .

 

[CapelDodger]

Clearly you could. Amundsen did, though the passage took years.

After they cleared the NWP they got iced-in again and Amundsen had to trudge overland to habitation to announce his success. That said, it might have been done more quickly if Amundsen hadn't loved it up there so much.

What he learnt in the process did stand him in good stead later. A strange but remarkable chap.

Would be much easier now.

I'm sure we'll see a Round-The-World Yacht Race in the Arctic in the next few years, even if it's only a couple of filthy rich guys settling a bet. It's a short step from there to an annual competition with sponsors - BP, Gazprom, Haliburton, the Koch Foundation, the list of potentials writes itself .

 

[aleCcowaN]

Forecasts from Canadian Ice Service for July

Western / Eastern

About "temperatures above normal", some forecasts

Inuvik (pretty continental, on permafrost)
Resolute (coastal, Northwest Passage, ice to the West)

adding a little bit of cherry-picking:

Eureka (Ellesmere Island, completely surrounded by ice, old ice much of it)

to neutralize cherry-picking:

Alert (Ellesmere Island, northernmost settlement -840 km from pole- surrounded by multi-year ice)

and this week the only station colder than my neck of the woods

By the way, yesterday's sea ice extent is 70,000 sq.km. above the lowest to that date and some 1.5 million sq.km. below that one a decade ago.

 

[BenBurch]

Extent still tracking with last year, and almost at the point where last year crossed above the 2007 line.

June monthly extent below the trend line for June; The ice is not recovering at all. (Not that I expect it will.)

 

[George 152]

Clearly you could. Amundsen did, though the passage took years. Would be much easier now.

There are tours through the North West Passage throughout summer and they have been going for at least 10 years...
And nuclear powered submarines have been surfacing at the Pole since the 1950s.
See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nuclear_Submarines_surfaced_at_the_North_Pole.jpg

 

[macdoc]

Um finding an open lead hard qualifies as ice free.

 

[CapelDodger]

There are tours through the North West Passage throughout summer and they have been going for at least 10 years...
And nuclear powered submarines have been surfacing at the Pole since the 1950s.
See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nuclear_Submarines_surfaced_at_the_North_Pole.jpg

Took a while for the tours to catch on, didn't it?

If you're suggesting that nothing new is happening in the Arctic then I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken. People who live up there or visit regularly (some since before the 50's) tell a very different story. So does the melting permafrost.

If you're not suggesting that then what is your point?

I'd appreciate a source for these tours through the NWP ten years ago. What kind of ships were involved? Were they accompanied by icebreakers? Did they exist at all? They do now, of course, because an open NWP has proved dependable over the last few years, but in 2001?

Sailing in the Arctic is obviously a very different matter from driving through it in a cruise-liner or RCN coastal-patrol ship, and its becoming increasingly popular. Another sign of how much things have changed.

 

[CapelDodger]

Um finding an open lead hard qualifies as ice free.

Echoes of the "nothing unusual happening in the Arctic" denier theme will be with us for a while. It just takes one person to hear it for the first time and feel the need to share this special knowledge with the world.

That photo is new to me so they have at least two to counter all the other evidence, which includes living memory. People are so inclined to believe their own lying eyes.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Echoes of the "nothing unusual happening in the Arctic" denier theme will be with us for a while. It just takes one person to hear it for the first time and feel the need to share this special knowledge with the world.

Don't worry, maybe we are in front of a mini-version of "1998 was the hottest year in record .... now it's cooling..."

Parry Channel: Historical weekly ice coverage for September 17

For someone, it's a resilient patch of ice, but mercurial climate is itself the sign of more energy in the system [By the way, so far there is more ice now in the channel than same date last year, both old and first-year]

 

[macdoc]

Hmm interesting graph - oddly seems to match up with ENSO events which does stand to reason given it's positioning.