Arctic sea ice heads for record low

NIALL D

Talking about it on rte news now ....

Su Campu

Polarstern is now at 88.9 N, just 75 miles from the Pole. Latest ice report states mostly old ice exerting moderate to severe pressure on the hull.

DBLK 20181 99889 10614 41296 81804 11048 21053 40212 5//// 75622 886// 222// 05012 ICE 19098=

Temp -4.8
Dewp -5.3
Wind S 4 kt
Freezing drizzle

MiNdGaM3

Great video showing ice thickness and concentration in both the Arctic and Antarctica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xgM4c7VBUc

Iancar29

Great video on possible effects of the ice melt...

Deep Easterly

Iancar29 wrote: »

Great video on possible effects of the ice melt...

Only watched the first half so far but very interesting video. Interesting especially was the discussion on the gradual weakening of the 500hPa mean zonal flow over the North Atlantic during the winter months. This I think has a lot of validity. Chart below shows mean seasonal windspeed for the winter season at Malin Head since 1962 (data missing though from between 1963 and 1966).



Data from http://eca.knmi.nl/utils/showindices.php?ojb8i49baiho9nna114irqnth0#

Would be interesting to see how the seasonal MSLP means from Malin compares with the obvious decline in mean windspeeds at the station.

Su Campu

RV Polarstern, which has been fairly stationary near the Pole over the past few days, has seen temperatures plummet in the past 48 hours. Sea temperature has been a constant -0.8 or -0.9 °C, with very close pack ice and conditions tough to sail through.

Here are the past 30 days. It will be heading back to Tromso in the next few days so we can compare its ice reports from then to a few weeks ago. A guide to decoding the ICE///// group is here.

http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?lang=en&ind=DBLK&ship=Yes&ano=2012&mes=9&day=24&hora=9&min=0&ndays=30

Su Campu

Here's an amazing video of a hurricane-force whiteout at the German Antarctic station Neumayer, at 70 S, taken on August 6th. Winds were averaging 70 knots, with gusts to 90 knots, at the time.

This station is at only 50 m, and around 1 km from the Wedell Sea coastline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSdD2rvEAA

More info here

Iancar29

One day... i WILL go there!

Rikand

Su Campu wrote: »

Here's an amazing video of a hurricane-force whiteout at the German Antarctic station Neumayer, at 70 S, taken on August 6th. Winds were averaging 70 knots, with gusts to 90 knots, at the time.

This station is at only 50 m, and around 1 km from the Wedell Sea coastline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSdD2rvEAA

More info here

not related to the topic, but what do you make of those "strange sightings at Neumeyer station " they have on the youtubes. I watched them after watching your video.

Just reflections of the sun/moon off the ice, projecting light into the sky or the "southern lights" or something else entirely ?

MiNdGaM3

Rickylovesuall wrote: »

not related to the topic, but what do you make of those "strange sightings at Neumeyer station " they have on the youtubes. I watched them after watching your video.

Just reflections of the sun/moon off the ice, projecting light into the sky or the "southern lights" or something else entirely ?

Can you give a link? Haven't heard any of this...

Rikand

MiNdGaM3 wrote: »

Can you give a link? Haven't heard any of this...

they were links at the end of the video Su posted. most likely conspiracy theorists and what not, but here they are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OypBeA9hhnE&feature=related

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3UBxkyI4E&feature=related

^^ second video is even labelled Arctic.......

MiNdGaM3

Rickylovesuall wrote: »

they were links at the end of the video Su posted. most likely conspiracy theorists and what not, but here they are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OypBeA9hhnE&feature=related

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3UBxkyI4E&feature=related

^^ second video is even labelled Arctic.......

Cheers.
Looks like some serious nonsense to me. Mostly lens flare and a few specks. The voice on the second video just does my head in!

Rikand

MiNdGaM3 wrote: »

Rickylovesuall wrote: »

they were links at the end of the video Su posted. most likely conspiracy theorists and what not, but here they are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OypBeA9hhnE&feature=related

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3UBxkyI4E&feature=related

^^ second video is even labelled Arctic.......

Cheers.
Looks like some serious nonsense to me. Mostly lens flare and a few specks. The voice on the second video just does my head in!

Oh lol. There was sound!

Had my sound muted and did not notice. Cheers

Su Campu

Here's an interesting note by Bremen University on their Sea Ice page, stating that this year's record minimum is not actually as low as it seems due to the limited resolution missing out the ice in the Canadian archipelago compared to last year. Another reason why quoting actual sea ice extent figures on a day to day basis is useless, and even the comparison to last year, when this error wasn't so pronounced, should be done in context.

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html

A note of caution: In the diagrams below, the Arctic sea ice extent after mid-August, 2012, is below last year's minimum. While the drastic decline since early August is confirmed by other sources, the absolute value is not. The most likely reason is as follows:

To avoid erroneous ice concentration along coasts (satellite signal mixed from land and ocean), near coastal-areas have to be excluded. However, the standard flag in the SSMIS data for coastal waters is rather coarse, thus a zone of about 30 km along all coasts is excluded. Especially in the Canadian Archipelago, this results in considerable sea areas not being included in the retrieval. This can only roughly be compensated by the above-mentioned time series adaptation to the previous AMSR-E data (which had higher resolution and a more refined coastal area flag). Since currently there is more ice in the Canadian Archipelago than in 2011 at the same time, more ice than last year is missed out in our data analysis, thus leading to the lower sea ice extent retrieved.

MiNdGaM3

Su Campu wrote: »

Here's an interesting note by Bremen University on their Sea Ice page, stating that this year's record minimum is not actually as low as it seems due to the limited resolution missing out the ice in the Canadian archipelago compared to last year. Another reason why quoting actual sea ice extent figures on a day to day basis is useless, and even the comparison to last year, when this error wasn't so pronounced, should be done in context.

http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html

That's mostly to do with the second half of August, not the minimum, and only in relation to 2011, not 2007. By early September, the Canadian Archipelago was down to lowest area on record (by cryosphere today, which also uses SSMIS), so it wouldn't have had the same effect, especially by the time the minimum was reached.

It does demonstrate why having multiple satellites, agencies and processing techniques is helpful to identify and resolve these kinds of issues though.

AMSR-2 has been operating since earlier in the summer, so I'm sure once everything has been validated, the older data will be processed to replace or work with the lower resolution SSMIS charts.

Wolfe_IRE

Here is an excellent link showing snow cover in the world from Feb 2000. It updates on the first day of each month.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOD10C1_M_SNOW

Wolfe_IRE

Latest readings from the Arctic - source: National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Arctic Sea Ice Extent – 15% or greater:



Northern Hemisphere Total (Sea and Lake) Ice Extent from the National Ice Center



Arctic Sea Ice Concentration – Same Date Compared With 2007



Arctic Sea Ice Extent -15% or Greater:

MiNdGaM3

Wolfe_IRE wrote: »

Latest readings from the Arctic - source: National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Here's some more
Sea ice area


Another to add is the volume

Su Campu

MiNdGaM3 wrote: »

Here's some more
Sea ice area

I wish that daily ice volume chart would update.....

MiNdGaM3

Su Campu wrote: »

I wish that daily ice volume chart would update.....

Agreed! Though going by recent years, it looks like it will probably just skim the top of the 3m line.

In relation to the winter refreeze, I think the volume chart will be the most important to watch. As we saw last March and April, the extent and area doesn't give much of a hint as to how the melt season will go.

srmambo

An interesting article which shows that the Arctic temperatures now are even warmer than they were back in Medieval times.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/29/929371/high-arctic-warmest-in-1800-years-the-medieval-warm-period-was-not-as-uniformly-warm-as-we-once-thought/

And a laid back article about the methane releases in the Arctic.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/25/dont_panic_arctic_mission_finds_methane_emissions_old_news/

MiNdGaM3

srmambo wrote: »

An interesting article which shows that the Arctic temperatures now are even warmer than they were back in Medieval times.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/29/929371/high-arctic-warmest-in-1800-years-the-medieval-warm-period-was-not-as-uniformly-warm-as-we-once-thought/

And a laid back article about the methane releases in the Arctic.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/25/dont_panic_arctic_mission_finds_methane_emissions_old_news/

I think the register is going to the opposite and equally bias end of the spectrum as the alarmist stuff from before!

With the first link, we need to be careful not to make determinations about the entire Arctic from data in a single location, in this case, Svalbard.

srmambo

MiNdGaM3 wrote: »

I think the register is going to the opposite and equally bias end of the spectrum as the alarmist stuff from before!

With the first link, we need to be careful not to make determinations about the entire Arctic from data in a single location, in this case, Svalbard.

Its still pretty surprising though.

I wonder how this years Arctic ice melt will effect the Antarctic. I am aware that it was close to its highest extent this year, but I believe that there could be some major melting of the land ice on the continent.

I also wonder where the Arctic is going to go from here, how the melt season will play out and if there is the possibility of there being melt out during the winter due to heat that is trapped in the water up in the Arctic.

Su Campu

This week's weekly report from the German research vessel Polarstern is an interesting piece.

http://www.awi.de/en/infrastructure/ships/polarstern/weekly_reports/all_expeditions/ark_xxvii/ark_xxvii3/1_october_2012/

Their blog is also interesting and well worth a read.

http://www.geo.de/blog/geo/polarstern-expedition

It's in German but there is an English version here, though it's a bit behind the German one.

http://www.awi.de/en/discover/expedition_reports/blog_polarstern_expedition_icearc/

It is now off the coast of southern Norway on its way back to Bremerhaven after two months in the Arctic. In a few weeks it will be making the trip south for its mission to the Antarctica summer. If I were young again I would try for a research position on the team, it must be some experience!

srmambo

A site which talks about both the Arctic ice melt this year and its forecast for when it will be ice free or nearly ice free

http://deepclimate.org/2012/10/04/2012-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-part-3-arctic-sea-ice-death-spiral-continues/#comment-14350

One interesting thing I came across when reading the article is that this years record did not beat the 2007 record to a large extent.

First of all, I doubt that 2012 represents as clear a “regime” change as 2007 did, although it seemed to catch experts somewhat by surprise. The 2007 September extent smashed the previous 2005 record by 23%, a scant two years later. This year’s record eclipsed 2007 by a lesser percentage (16%), and came five years on.

MiNdGaM3

srmambo wrote: »

A site which talks about both the Arctic ice melt this year and its forecast for when it will be ice free or nearly ice free

http://deepclimate.org/2012/10/04/2012-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-part-3-arctic-sea-ice-death-spiral-continues/#comment-14350

One interesting thing I came across when reading the article is that this years record did not beat the 2007 record to a large extent.

Depends on what measure you use really, though 16% is still a massive amount, and larger than any other recording breaking year before 2007.
With IJIS extent it's 22% for 07 compared to 20% this year.
With volume, the biggest record loss was 31% in 2010

Su Campu

A nice image taken from the bridge of Polarstern during its two-month expedition in the Arctic. It's now back in port and preparing for its transit to Antarctica at the end of the month.

Wolfe_IRE

MiNdGaM3 wrote: »

Is that Ireland's FIFA ranking?

srmambo

The norsex models seem rather loopy at the moment showing the extent and area (just at the 2007) above 2007.


Area



Extent

MiNdGaM3

Wolfe_IRE wrote: »

Is that Ireland's FIFA ranking?

Maybe if you invert it;)