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2011 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

From this, it would appear that the ice pack is less solid than in 2007;

http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=08&fd=30&fy=2007&sm=08&sd=30&sy=2011

Notice 2007 was mostly purples, that is nearly 100% ice cover, but this year we have a large region of low cover that might either melt or compact over the next few days.

Solar melting is basically done now, but all that water warmed up in the summer, and the ice is melting from the bottom now.
 
We may not be seeing anything truly dramatic this year, but if there's another warm Arctic winter like the last one then next year might well be spectacular.

"Truly dramatic" is relative to recent times, of course :).
 
CapelDodger said:
We may not be seeing anything truly dramatic this year, but if there's another warm Arctic winter like the last one then next year might well be spectacular.

"Truly dramatic" is relative to recent times, of course :).
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Ditto. Some strange plots are to be seen, however, as unlike previous years most of the remaining ice is thin, bergy, and not much organized, so some 'mercurial behaviour' is expected -we might be a couple of days away of the minimum but we may return to that minimum more than once during the whole month of September-.

I expect this Northern Winter to be even warmer throughout the Arctic, for ENSO reasons. In that case, next year is the year -the year of the step down-, not this one. We are still away from zero sea-ice; probably 6 years away in a loose sense and 10 or 12 in a strict sense.
 
aleCcowaN said:
I expect this Northern Winter to be even warmer throughout the Arctic, for ENSO reasons. In that case, next year is the year -the year of the step down-, not this one. We are still away from zero sea-ice; probably 6 years away in a loose sense and 10 or 12 in a strict sense.
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Summer 2007 saw a step-down, so we're really waiting for the next step-down. The process was never going to be linear, of course.

The irony is that we'll have a good understanding of bulk-ice behaviour just about when it doesn't matter any more. I've always regarded modelling ice as intrinsically much more difficult than modelling climate. It includes all the phase-changes and plastic deformation - a nightmare :eek:.
 
CapelDodger said:
The irony is that we'll have a good understanding of bulk-ice behaviour just about when it doesn't matter any more.
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We're in new territories. They departed from 30,000 km3 of ice in late Winter to 15,000 km3 in late Summer, with multi-year ice, and now we're in 18,000/3,000 going down and the remaining ice is each year closer to the standard deviation of yearly ice formation, so, keeping aside some one million square kilometres of ice that would be scattered of entrenched in geography's corners, we are probably in front of one or two decades with years without summer ice and years with as "plenty" of ice as this year -and of course the litany of "ice is coming back stronger than ever" on part of our favourite mongers each year we are safely far from zero-.

That and the increasingly less "perma" in permafrost and the quicksilver climate in high -but not so- latitudes.

I recommend also to take a look to the antipodes. Interesting developments are occurring now without the attention of laymen.
 
I suspect that's mostly to do with the thickness of the 2011 line :)

2007 definitely under threat, really depends now on weather over the next couple of weeks (rather than climate!)
 
BenBurch said:
The Bremen number appears to be equal to the 2007 low as of today.
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Also interesting to note that 2011 is basically tied for second lowest on record even if melting stopped today. Extent should decline for another 1-3 weeks so we are looking at 2011 being the second lowest extent on record with an outside change of matching 2007 for lowest.
 
lomiller said:
Also interesting to note that 2011 is basically tied for second lowest on record even if melting stopped today. Extent should decline for another 1-3 weeks so we are looking at 2011 being the second lowest extent on record with an outside change of matching 2007 for lowest.
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Why do you think only "outside" chance?

Just looking at the slope suggests better odds than that, not to mention the quality of ice as Ben already pointed out.

PolarStern scientists were split 50:50 a couple of weeks ago, I think it's become more likely since then.

Bits of Science has a good blog on the issue, and particularly the weather. It reports a slightly better chance of a positive NAO, which should help halt the melting.
 
I'm a bit anxious too, as MASIE (NSIDC) showed the sea ice extent growing two days in a row and we are now two days behind for site malfunctioning.

Many things going different this year, including the "glowy thingy" they used to correct on June 15 but they changed, so this is the first year for the new method.

Of course, the melting season above 80° is over and the average temperature was between -3 and -4°C yesterday. Sea surface temperatures anomalies above 60° are to date similar to last year's, as an average. This year there are three regions where some additional melting is expected. But that's it. One week or two.

But this year we'll probably have to wait until the second part of October to know the year's minimum.
 
It's working now. :confused: This is the first time I've looked at it for about a week, though.

There's a new report (well new to me), I'll cut and paste the first few paragraphs in case it goes down again.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

September 6, 2011

Arctic sea ice near record lows

Arctic sea ice extent averaged for August 2011 reached the second lowest level for the month in the 1979 to 2011 satellite record. Both the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea route appear to be open. Throughout August, sea ice extent tracked near the record lows of 2007, underscoring the continued decline in Arctic ice cover.

Note: Arctic sea ice extent will likely reach its minimum extent for the year sometime in the next two weeks. NSIDC will make a preliminary announcement when ice extent has stopped declining and has increased for several days in a row. Monthly data for September will be released in early October.

Overview of conditions

Average ice extent for August 2011 was 5.52 million square kilometers (2.13 million square miles). This is 160,000 square kilometers (61,800 square miles) above the previous record low for the month, set in August 2007, and 2.15 million square kilometers (830,000 square miles), or 28% below the average for 1979 to 2000. Sea ice coverage remained below normal everywhere except the East Greenland Sea. In addition, several large areas of open water (polynyas) have opened within the ice pack.

On August 31, 2011 Arctic sea ice extent was 4.63 million square kilometers (1.79 million square miles). This is 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) higher than the previous record low for the same day of the year, set in 2007. As of September 5, ice extent had fallen below the minimum ice extents in September 2010 and 2008 (previously the third- and second-lowest minima in the satellite record). If ice stopped declining in extent today it would be the second-lowest minimum extent in the satellite record.

Higher-resolution Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) data processed by the University of Bremen showed ice extent on September 5 as falling below the same date in 2007.
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This year's extent line is now just touching the 2007 one.
 
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Pixel42 said:
There's a new report (well new to me), I'll cut and paste the first few paragraphs in case it goes down again.
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Thanks... it's down again. I guess there are a lot of bets going on regarding this year's minimum.
 
Update from PIOMAS!

Sea ice volume on August 31st (day 243): 4,275 km3(previous record low was broken the 23th; anyway, they have an error margin that varies and it's usually about 1,000 km3 though their model tend to overestimate thin ice and underestimate thick one so real volume may be less)

The last trend makes me expect a minimum volume from 3,600 to 3,900 though further analysis might make them announce some 100-300 less later in October.

MASIE is working intermittently and the data is frozen on September 2nd with extension growing.

Crossing last data from extent from IJIS and volume from PIOMAS (maybe like crossing panther with puma) it looks like average thickness is growing.
 
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