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2016 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

aleCcowaN said:
That's only regionally relevant during June and July, or locally in lower latitudes, like Hudson Bay.

People should get some conclusion from the fact that both pole's sea ice maximums and minimums happen during September and March -and a bit earlier in Antarctica-.
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Even low angle insolation starting in late April onto open water adds heat that would not have been added were there high albedo ice there instead.
 
BenBurch said:
Even low angle insolation starting in late April onto open water adds heat that would not have been added were there high albedo ice there instead.
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A campfire also changes the balance.

You, more than anybody else, should realize when an argumentation is lacking figures and a no-no.

As I said: just local effects, and effects that "move the needle" only during June and July.

Feel free to either follow a crash course in polar region dynamics or do the simplest arithmetic of comparing the order of magnitude of energy absorbed because the different albedo on one million square kilometres of lost sea ice at 70°N during May and the 2 to 3 sv stream of warmer waters coming from mid latitudes to compensate for the 2 to 3 sv stream of briney waters sinking around the points new ice is forming that very same month. That open waters around Iceland and north of Scotland, east of Norway and up to Svalbard should tell you something.

And before you say anything further, be sure to comprehend the more heat the ice-free ocean waters get from the sun, the less heat the whole Arctic gets from mid-latitude IF those open waters were caused by less ice being created.
 
aleCcowaN said:
A campfire also changes the balance.

You, more than anybody else, should realize when an argumentation is lacking figures and a no-no.

As I said: just local effects, and effects that "move the needle" only during June and July.

Feel free to either follow a crash course in polar region dynamics or do the simplest arithmetic of comparing the order of magnitude of energy absorbed because the different albedo on one million square kilometres of lost sea ice at 70°N during May and the 2 to 3 sv stream of warmer waters coming from mid latitudes to compensate for the 2 to 3 sv stream of briney waters sinking around the points new ice is forming that very same month. That open waters around Iceland and north of Scotland, east of Norway and up to Svalbard should tell you something.

And before you say anything further, be sure to comprehend the more heat the ice-free ocean waters get from the sun, the less heat the whole Arctic gets from mid-latitude IF those open waters were caused by less ice being created.
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True enough, but I try never to ignore small effects as they tend to accumulate.
 
And before you say anything further, be sure to comprehend the more heat the ice-free ocean waters get from the sun, the less heat the whole Arctic gets from mid-latitude IF those open waters were caused by less ice being created.
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Seems to be a bit of stretch blanket statement.

Are you talking Arctic ocean heat or ambient air temperatures when you say "whole Arctic" .. I assume you refer to the weakening gradient as the Arctic warms so the jet stream transports less heat?
 
Bad timing for a satellite to go down, interesting things going on with the ice right now.

A high pressure system is turning on the Beaufort gyre and pulling the ice apart.
 
lomiller said:
It looks like JAXA may not be impacted
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/jaxa-and-nsidc/
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I believe this is a current (as of 4/21/16) graph of SIE based on jaxa/ijis.

2012 was the record setting year for annual sea ice minimum extent. At this moment, 2016 is well below (nearly 1million km2) 2012 at the same date. That said, from this day forward in 2012, extent dropped nearly 1milliin km2 over the course of the remainder of April and into May--about 2 weeks. So it will be interesting to see if 2016 can maintain its large lead (in sea ice loss) over the record minimum of 2012, between now and, say, May 10th.

As spectacle, this may be interesting and even exciting, as to the health of the planet, this loss of arctic sea ice is sad and frightening.

 
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SIE reported on 24 April is 12,681,673km2. At current rate of decline and with projected high temperature anomalies in most Arctic peripheral regions and the Arctic basin, there is a chance SIE may dip below 12.5million km2 by 30 April. That would be unprecedented in the satellite era.
 
As reported by IJIS, Arctic sea ice extent is below 12.5m km2 before the end of April for the first time in the satellite era. By contrast, the average date for reaching that level of extent from 1980-89 was June 2. Since 2000, the average date has been around May 10.
If the melt season continues as present trend indicates, chances of a new record low, perhaps approaching an ice free level (<1m km2) might happen.

 
BenBurch said:
This is frightening.
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SIE is at a record low for this date. Looking ahead, the average daily loss in May is +/-50k km2/day. As of 4/30/16, SIE was well under 12.5m, for the earliest breach of that level in the satellite era (starting in 1979). SIE on 4/30 was 12.29m.

Here's a chart with high, low and average loss projections for the month of May:

 
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maybe??

Arctic Sea Ice is Falling off a Cliff and it May Not Survive The Summer

Near zero sea ice by the end of melt season. The dreaded Blue Ocean Event. Something that appears more and more likely to happen during 2016 with each passing day.

These are the kinds of climate-wrecking phase changes in the Arctic people have been worrying about since sea ice extent, area, and volume achieved gut-wrenching plunges during 2007 and 2012. Plunges that were far faster than sea ice melt rates predicted by model runs and by the then scientific consensus on how the Arctic Ocean ice would respond to human-forced warming this Century. For back during the first decade of the the 21st Century the mainstream scientific view was that Arctic sea ice would be about in the range that it is today by around 2070 or 2080. And that we wouldn’t be contemplating the possibility of zero or near zero sea ice until the end of this Century.

But the amazing ability of an unconscionable fossil fuel emission to rapidly transform our world for the worst appears now to outweigh that cautious science. For during 2016, the Arctic is experiencing a record warm year like never before. Average temperatures over the region have been hitting unprecedented ranges. Temperatures that — when one who understands the sensitive nature of the Arctic looks at them — inspires feelings of dislocation and disbelief. For our Arctic sea ice coverage has been consistently in record low ranges throughout Winter, it has been following a steepening curve of loss since April, and it now appears to have started to fall off a cliff. Severe losses that are likely to both impact the Jet Stream and extreme weather formation in the Northern Hemisphere throughout the Spring and Summer of 2016.

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https://robertscribbler.com/2016/05...ff-a-cliff-and-it-may-not-survive-the-summer/
 
sphenisc said:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2016/05/daily-sea-ice-extent-updates-resume-with-provisional-data/

Daily sea ice extent updates resume with provisional data
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Because NSIDC and Cryosphere Today are having acknowledged problems that they say will require a couple of months to resolve, the best available reliable data for Sea Ice Extent is the Japanese group ADS-JAXA, formerly known also as IJIS.

This data source is found at:

https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html


NSIDC announcement about the time needed to repair their system is found at:

http://nsidc.org/the-drift/data-update/sea-ice-index-processing-suspended/


The most recent JAXA data show a one day extent decline of >130k km2, the third largest one day decline in the springtime from years 2003-16.

Not good. :-(
 
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