• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

2015 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

Warmer1 said:
"The ocean surface freezes if the temperature falls below -2.5C. The reason for the negative melting point is the presence of 4-5% of sea salt."

http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2013/06/open-water-in-areas-around-north-pole.html
Click to expand...

Please, read paying a modicum of attention before replying something.

According to you

melt = freeze

well done!

I reject the lines you quoted above owing their wilful ignorance of the basics. 4-5% salinity? Really? :rolleyes: [If you needed them for clarification tell me the number of laughing dogs that I have to use when I address you] The author of that piece of silliness seems to "remember" that salinity is about 4-5% and look values in a table for 100% sodium chloride-water solutions freezing points.

The temperature for "freezing" is -1.8°C to -2.0°C. That you require a delta-T for heat to flow is different thing. The temperature for melting is 0 to -0.4°C. That's why that blogpost sounded ridiculous to me and I ironically asked for it to be explained.

Particularly, the stupidity in those posts is that -3° neither fosters melting nor new ice formation, and the supposition that today's temperatures around -3°C have a fundamental bearing on the regional temperatures 60 days in the future is utmost ridiculous.
 
Warmer1 said:
Also try 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010, and 2013 vs. 2015 and you will see it is not like each year during the last two decades
:D


.
Click to expand...

First learn what the green curve is. Then return to apologize for you text and smiley above. I will reserve for a while my comments on your intellectual style.
 
aleCcowaN said:
According to you

melt = freeze

well done!
Click to expand...

I thought the freeze and melt point would be the same, as it is generally considered to be for fresh water, and I was wrong as you have pointed out. You are also correct that the melt point number is wrong as well for the salinity, as well as using % instead of PPT.

I reject the lines you quoted above owing their willful ignorance of the basics.
[snip]
is utmost ridiculous.
Click to expand...

You are correct. I didn't scrutinize the article thoroughly, and I would have missed some of the other errors anyway.

I'm in the Mackenzie River Watershed at the moment and it has be exceptionally warm here in contrast to the extreme cold weather that was typical 27 years ago. The temperature maps in the article became my main focus when I read the post.

It's incredible how much heat is trapped in the Pacific Ocean and it's very interesting to me to watch that heat get transferred into the Arctic via the Mackenzie River Watershed. The snow in this area melted much earlier this spring and there were many rains which would normally have been snow. I'm not sure how far north the snow has melted but the increase in the albedo is significant as the watershed is 1,805,200 square kilometers in size.

The dog sled race course in Alaska had to be changed twice due to lack of snow, and snow had to be trucked into Anchorage for the start of the race. It's cooking up here.

Weather is not climate. Lots of extra heat going into the Arctic in this unusual winter and spring.

Time to head south.
 
aleCcowaN said:
First learn what the green curve is. Then return to apologize for you text and smiley above. I will reserve for a while my comments on your intellectual style.
Click to expand...

I do have to sincerely apologize for that. My bad.
 
Apology accepted. I, in turn, apologize for my harsh tone.

Warmer1 said:
I'm not sure how far north the snow has melted but the increase in the albedo is significant as the watershed is 1,805,200 square kilometers in size.
Click to expand...

I suppose you meant "decrease in albedo".

In fact, the Mackenzie, as well as the Obi, Yenisei and Lena, contribute to the Arctic Ocean having a very low salinity so the temperature for freezing seawater is closer to 0°C than that needed in the Antarctic.

Western North America is going to experience the full impact the current El Niño, the PDO cycle and the RRR. However the region north of the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland is going to stay much colder, so melting this year may have some spectacular progress until all the one-year ice is gone and then it'll probably stall.

I'm very worried about people crying wolf next June and being mocked by denialist -who have an amazing hindsight processing capacity which is the envy of Minitrue (in newspeak)- later in September.
 
BenBurch said:
The extent trajectory is now below the 2 standard deviations line and showing no signs of that changing.
Click to expand...

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2015/05/Figure21.png

Not sure if the visuals hurt or help, but I always like a handy comparison tool.

edit: oops that was only through April here's the line through most of May:
picture.php
 
Last edited:
ARCUS Sea Ice Outlook - June 2015 just published

Highlights:

The mean Arctic sea ice area for next September is 5 million square kilometres, taken as an average of all means in all inputs. For statistical and modelling (the serious ones) is a bit above.

Some of them:

Met Office (modelling) = 4.4 +/- 0.9
Canadian Ice Service (mix of statistical and heuristics) = 4.7
NASA GMAO (modelling, one of my favourites) = 5.03 +/- 0.41
GFDL NOAA (modelling, another favourite) = 5.17 [4.51-5.83]

Remember it's about September's average. The minimum extent should be about 150 or 200 thousand square kilometres less.
 
Yesterday (all our troubles seemed so far away), sea ice extent was 8.75 million square kilometres according to JAXA, a larger value for the date than any year from 2006 on (included 2006), except for 2008 and 2009. Historically, the average Arctic temperature reaches its maximum around July 25th.

Anyway, a high pressure on Greenland seems to be promising to pitch some ice through the Fram during the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.
 
Looks like the slightly lower sea ice during March through to May has not maintained, and we are seeing sea ice extent much closer to 2013/2014 than 2011

2qbi3ya.png


If this continues I predict this thread will have below average activity for the rest of the year... ;) :D
 
CoolSceptic said:
Looks like the slightly lower sea ice during March through to May has not maintained, and we are seeing sea ice extent much closer to 2013/2014 than 2011

[qimg]http://i60.tinypic.com/2qbi3ya.png[/qimg]

If this continues I predict this thread will have below average activity for the rest of the year... ;) :D
Click to expand...

actually, low activity here is normal, by design.

as to overall levels of sea ice, low levels are more often a factor of winds rather than slight differences in temps., at least at this point in the evolution of polar sea ice.
 
Trakar said:
actually, low activity here is normal, by design.

as to overall levels of sea ice, low levels are more often a factor of winds rather than slight differences in temps., at least at this point in the evolution of polar sea ice.
Click to expand...

Yes - internal climate variability absolutely dominates fluctuations in Arctic sea ice extent, in the form of winds and ocean currents; and these are internal parts of the complex, coupled, non-linear climate system and are sensitive to initial conditions, so not deterministically predictable.

But I have a particular interest in the 2015 sea ice level. Back in 2008, I cautioned people here not to read too much into the low level of arctic sea ice in 2007, noting one year was unlikely to be statistically significant on its own, and that rather more data was going to be required; and that understanding the significance of fluctuations required accounting for the long term persistence in the climate system, something which is difficult to do.

Nobody was willing to take me up on the offer of doing a calculation of the significance of the change; I think people realised that 2007 alone would not be significant; but CapelDodger told me it would become significant, and in determining that significance I should assume that in 2015 the Arctic summer would be ice-free. (link) CapelDodger was so sure of himself in this that he told me I could just do the maths right there and then.

I responded by telling him I would rather wait until 2015 for this "ice-free" Arctic summer. Just a few more months to wait for the answer now. Funnily enough, nobody back then was willing to offer the good advice you've given here - that things other than temperature are important in determining what the sea ice extent might be, essentially the point I was making at the time. Given the vitriol that was aimed at me around that time by various people, it is quite satisfying to see that my perspective seems to stand the test of time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom