bluewave

It has delayed the first day above 90 at Newark by at least a few weeks. Average first day for the 2010’s has been May 20th. This will be the first time later than June 1st since 2014. First/Last Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Each section contains date and year of occurrence, value on that date. Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Year First Value Last Value Difference Minimum 04-07 (2010) 08-08 (2011) 69 Mean 05-20 09-06 108 Maximum 06-17 (2014) 09-24 (2017) 153 2019 - - - - - 2018 05-03 (2018) 94 09-06 (2018) 98 125 2017 05-17 (2017) 92 09-24 (2017) 92 129 2016 05-25 (2016) 91 09-14 (2016) 94 111 2015 05-26 (2015) 91 09-09 (2015) 91 105 2014 06-17 (2014) 91 09-06 (2014) 95 80 2013 05-30 (2013) 93 09-11 (2013) 96 103 2012 05-28 (2012) 91 09-01 (2012) 92 95 2011 05-30 (2011) 92 08-08 (2011) 93 69 2010 04-07 (2010) 92 09-08 (2010) 93 153

This is one of those years when the spring pattern continues right into early MET summer. Strong vortex and SST cold pool near New England. This limits the warmth potential for us with a continuing active convection pattern. The 2010’s have been famous for these stuck weather patterns.

Parts of the Northeast may need to turn on the heat early next week. Near record low 500 mb heights forecast over the region. So more severe potential with such a strong frontal system and steep midlevel lapse rates Sunday. Very impressively cold upper low will be overhead Monday. Models suggest 500 mb heights below 545 dam. A check of the SPC sounding climatology page puts these values near record lows for 3 June. Same with 500 mb temps -25 to -30C and 850 mb temps around 0C. It will feel decidedly un-June-like with highs struggling to reach 60 in the Capital District and Glens Falls area, and 40s and 50s across the high terrain.

We will move into early June with another one of our famous repeating weather patterns. Maximum temperature cool down from the last week of May into the first week of June. This looks to be the 4th year out of the last 5 with a cooler maximum temperature at Newark. Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Ending Date Highest Max Temperature May 25 to May 31 Missing Count 2019-05-31 90 4 2018-05-31 92 0 2017-05-31 80 0 2016-05-31 96 0 2015-05-31 91 Time Series Summary for NEWARK LIBERTY INTL AP, NJ Click column heading to sort ascending, click again to sort descending. Ending Date Highest Max Temperature Jun 1 to Jun 7 Missing Count 2018-06-07 87 0 2017-06-07 82 0 2016-06-07 87 0 2015-06-07 78

Great write-up on the conditions leading to April 2019 beating the minimum sea ice extent record set in 2016. Also an analysis on sea ice age and transport. https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2019/05/rapid-ice-loss-in-early-april-leads-to-new-record-low/ Rapid ice loss in early April leads to new record low May 2, 2019 April reached a new record Arctic low sea ice extent. Sea ice loss was rapid in the beginning of the month because of declines in the Sea of Okhotsk. The rate of ice loss slowed after early April, due in part to gains in extent in the Bering and Barents Seas. However, daily ice extent remained at record low levels throughout the month. Overview of conditions Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for April 2019 was 13.45 million square kilometers (5.19 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1981 to 2010 average extent for that month. Sea Ice Index data. About the data Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center High-resolution image Arctic sea ice extent for April 2019 averaged 13.45 million square kilometers (5.19 million square miles). This was 1.24 million square kilometers (479,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average extent and 230,000 square kilometers (89,000 square miles) below the previous record low set in April 2016. Rapid ice loss occurred in the Sea of Okhotsk during the first half of April; the region lost almost 50 percent of its ice by April 18. Although sea ice was tracking at record low levels in the Bering Sea from April 1 to 12, the ice cover expanded later in the month. Elsewhere, there was little change except for small losses in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the southern part of the East Greenland Sea, and southeast of Svalbard. In addition, open water areas developed along coastal regions of the Barents Sea. The ice edge expanded slightly east of Novaya Zemlya. Conditions in context Figure 2a. The graph above shows Arctic sea ice extent as of May 1, 2019, along with daily ice extent data for four previous years and 2012. 2019 is shown in blue, 2018 in green, 2017 in orange, 2016 in brown, 2015 in purple, and 2012 in dotted brown. The 1981 to 2010 median is in dark gray. The gray areas around the median line show the interquartile and interdecile ranges of the data. Sea Ice Index data. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center High-resolution image Figure 2b. This plot shows the departure from average air temperature in the Arctic at the 925 hPa level, in degrees Celsius, for April 2019. Yellows and reds indicate higher than average temperatures; blues and purples indicate lower than average temperatures. Credit: NSIDC courtesy NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Division High-resolution image Air temperatures at the 925 hPa level (approximately 2,500 feet above the surface) were above average across the Arctic during the first two weeks of April, especially over the East Siberian Sea and the Greenland Ice Sheet where air temperatures were as much as 9 degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit) above average (Figure 2b). Elsewhere, 925 hPa temperatures were between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius (5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, including the Sea of Okhotsk where ice loss early in the month was especially prominent. These relatively warm conditions were linked to a pattern of high sea level pressure over the Beaufort Sea paired with low sea level pressure over Alaska, Siberia, and the Kara and Barents Seas. This drove warm air from the south over the East Siberian Sea. Similarly, high pressure over Greenland and the North Atlantic, coupled with low sea level pressure within Baffin Bay, helped usher in warm air over southern Greenland from the southeast. During the second half of the month, temperatures remained above average over most of the Arctic Ocean, and up to 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) above average over the East Greenland Sea. However, temperatures were 1 to 5 degrees Celsius (2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) below average over the Bering Sea, and up to 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) below average over the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Air temperatures were slightly below average in the Kara Sea. April 2019 compared to previous years Figure 3. Monthly April ice extent for 1979 to 2019 shows a decline of 2.64 percent per decade. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center High-resolution image The 1979 to 2019 linear rate of decline for April ice extent is 38,800 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) per year, or 2.64 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. Sea ice age update Figure 4. The top maps compare Arctic sea ice age for (a) April 8 to 14, 1984, and (b) April 9 to 15, 2019. The time series (c) of mid-April sea ice age as a percentage of Arctic Ocean coverage from 1984 to 2019 shows the nearly complete loss of 4+ year old ice; note the that age time series is for ice within the Arctic Ocean and does not include peripheral regions where only first-year (0 to 1 year old) ice occurs, such as the Bering Sea, Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay, and the Sea of Okhotsk. Credit: W. Meier, NSIDC High-resolution image Younger sea ice tends to be thinner than older ice. Therefore, sea ice age provides an early assessment of the areas most susceptible to melting out during the coming summer. The Arctic sea ice cover continues to become younger (Figure 4), and therefore, on average, thinner. Nearly all of the oldest ice (4+ year old), which once made up around 30 percent of the sea ice within the Arctic Ocean, is gone. As of mid-April 2019, the 4+ year-old ice made up only 1.2 percent of the ice cover (Figure 4c). However, 3 to 4-year-old ice increased slightly, jumping from 1.1 percent in 2018 to 6.1 percent this year. If that ice survives the summer melt season, it will somewhat replenish the 4+ year old category going into the 2019 to 2020 winter. However, there has been little such replenishment in recent years. The sea ice age data products were recently updated through 2018 (Version 4, Tschudi et al., 2019). Data is available here. In addition, an interim QuickLook product that will provide preliminary updates every month is in development. Changing ice and sediment transport Figure 5a. This map shows the main sea ice drift patterns. Figure 5b. This illustration shows how sediments can be ingrained into the newly forming sea ice. Figure 5c. This graph shows the probability that newly formed ice in the winter will survive the summer. Credit: T. Krumpen High-resolution image Figure 5d. This image shows sediment-rich sea ice in the Transpolar Drift Stream. A crane lowers two researchers from the decks of the icebreaker RV Polarstern to the surface of the ice to collect samples. Photo Credit: R. Stein, Alfred Wegener Institut High-resolution image Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI) monitored and analyzed sea ice motion using satellite data from 1998 to 2017 and concluded that only 20 percent of the sea ice that forms in the shallow Russian seas of the Arctic Ocean now reaches the central Arctic Ocean to join the Transpolar Drift Stream(Figures 5a and b). The Russian seas, including the Kara, Laptev, and East Siberian Seas, are considered the ice nursery of the Arctic. The remaining 80 percent of this first-year ice melts before it has a chance to leave this nursery. Prior to the year 2000, that number was about 50 percent (Figure 5c). These conclusions find support from sea ice thickness observations in Fram Strait, which is fed by the Transpolar Drift Stream. AWI scientists regularly gather ice thickness data in Fram Strait as part of their IceBird program. The ice now leaving the Arctic Ocean through the Fram Strait is, on average, 30 percent thinner than it was 15 years ago. There are two reasons for this. First, winters are warmer and the melt season now begins much earlier than it used to. Second, much of this ice no longer forms in the shallow seas, but much farther north. As a result, it has less time to thicken from winter growth and/or ridging as it drifts across the Arctic Ocean. These changes in transport and melt affect biogeochemical fluxes and ecological processes in the central Arctic Ocean. For example, in the past, the sea ice that formed along the shallow Russian seas transported mineral material, including dust from the tundra and steppe, to the Fram Strait (Figure 5d). Today, the melting floes release this material en route to the central Arctic Ocean. Far less material now reaches the Fram Strait and it is different in composition. This finding is based on two decades of data sourced from sediment traps maintained in the Fram Strait by AWI biologists. Instead of Siberian minerals, sediment traps now contain remains of dead algae and microorganisms that grew within the ice as it drifted. Putting current changes into longer-term perspective Figure 6. This map shows Arctic regions used in the Walsh et al. study and how much each area’s September extent contributes to the total September sea ice extent. The top number gives the percentage (as squares of correlations, or R2) when the raw 1953 to 2013 ice extent time series is used. The bottom number (bold) gives what the percentage drops to after the time series data have been detrended. For example, about 70 percent of the September Arctic-wide extent number is explained by the September extent in the seas north of Alaska, but that drops to about 20 percent once the trends have been removed. Credit: Walsh et al., 2019, The Cryosphere High-resolution image While changes in sea ice extent over the past several decades are usually shown as linear trends, they can mask important variations and changes. A recent study led by John Walsh at University Alaska Fairbanks compared various trend-line fits to sea ice extent time series back to 1953, for the Arctic as a whole and various sub-regions. This data set extends the satellite record by using operational ice charts and other historical sources (Walsh et al., 2016). They found that a two-piece linear fit with a break point in the 1990s provides a more meaningful basis for calculations of sea ice departures from average conditions and their persistence, rather than a single trend line computed over the period 1953 to the present. Persistence of sea ice departures from average conditions represents the memory of the system, which can be used to forecast sea ice conditions a few months in advance. September Arctic-wide ice extent can also be predicted with some limited skill when the data include the trend. However, this apparent skill largely vanishes when the trend is removed from the data using the two-piece linear fit. This finding is consistent with the notion of a springtime predictability barrier, such that springtime sea ice conditions are usually not a strong predictor of the summer ice cover because atmospheric circulation patterns in summer erode this memory in the system. For example, despite the extensive coverage of fairly young—and hence thin—ice this spring, cool summer weather conditions may limit melt, leading to a higher September ice extent than might otherwise be expected. April snow melt in Greenland—notable but not unusual Temperatures were well above average over Greenland for much of April but were still below freezing except near the coast. Satellite data indicate that there was a small area surface melt on the southeastern coastal part of the ice sheet early in the month. In the last week of April, melt became more extensive, spreading further north on the east coast and starting on the west coast. While interesting, this is not especially unusual. Most years of the past decade have some surface melt in April. In 2012 and 2016, strong melt events occurred in April that covered a much larger area than in 2019. NSIDC is now trackingGreenland surface melt for 2019 on a daily basis.

Updated for April 2019. 4...2019....EWR...10...NYC...8...LGA...10...JFK...10...BDR...9.....ISP...5

Looks like we are on track for a new lowest April average sea ice extent. NSIDC monthly record lowest average sea ice extents Jan...2018 Feb.. 2018 Mar...2017 Apr....2019...so far...previous record 2016 May...2016 Jun....2016 Jul.....2012 Aug...2012 Sep...2012 Oct...2012 Nov...2016 Dec...2016 https://mobile.twitter.com/bhensonweather/status/1115700868723003392 Arctic sea ice extent is plummeting into truly uncharted territory for mid-April. (link: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/) nsidc.org/arcticseaicene…

Energy transitions are slow and challenging. Look how difficult it has been for a country like Germany that takes climate change seriously. https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-crossroads-can-germany-revive-its-stalled-energy-transition Northern Germany, from the Polish borderlands in the east to the Netherlands in the west, is the stronghold of Germany’s muscular onshore wind power industry. This is where the lion’s share of the country’s nearly 30,000 wind turbines are sited, a combined force equal to the power generation of about 10 nuclear reactors. Where Germany’s northernmost tip abuts Denmark, soaring turbines crowd the horizon as far as the eye can see. And many more are coming as Germany strives to go carbon neutral by 2050. Yet despite their impressive might, the north’s wind parks are a reminder not only of how much has been accomplished in Germany’s Energiewende, or clean energy transition, but also of what remains to be done. Although the country has made a Herculean effort to shift to a clean energy economy — in just the past five years government support and costs to consumers have totaled an estimated 160 billion euros ($181 billion) — Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions have not declined as rapidly as expected in response to the vigorous expansion of renewable energy, which now generates 40 percent of the country’s electricity. Germany’s politicians are even resigned to falling significantly short of the country’s 2020 goal of reducing emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels. Germany’s failings have come as a vexing shock to its environmentally conscious citizenry. While Germans still overwhelmingly back the energy transition — for years polls showed support in excess of 90 percent — about three-quarters say the government is not doing enough to slow global warming. Today, the Energiewende finds itself stalled and floundering. Germany’s carbon emissions have stagnated at roughly their 2009 level. The country remains Europe’s largest producer and burner of coal, which generates more than one-third of Germany’s power supply. Moreover, emissions in the transportation sector have shot up by 20 percent since 1995 and are rising with no end in sight, experts say. German consumers have seen their electricity bills soar since 2000, in part because of the renewable energy surcharge.

https://mobile.twitter.com/bhensonweather/status/1112750445397577728 Arctic sea ice extent has broken into record-low territory for the start of April. Late-spring & summer weather are bigger factors in determining how much ice cover is lost during the warm season. Still, this is a disconcerting drop. (link: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/) nsidc.org/arcticseaicene… https://mobile.twitter.com/IARC_Alaska/status/1112768243251314688 March was the warmest of record over all nearly of Alaska north of the Alaska Range & Bristol Bay. Some places on the North Slope & in Northwest Arctic Borough were more than 20F (11C) above normal. Early snowmelt southern areas. https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1112711147415691264 Utqiaġvik (Barrow): average March temperature +5.9F (-14.5C) is highest of record, 18.6F (10.3C) above 1981-2010 normal & 6.6F (3.7C) above the previous warmest March (2018). 8 of 10 warmest Marchs since mid-90s. https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1112754212293636096 Kotzebue average temperature for March 23.0F (-5.0C) is 21.9F (12.2C) above normal and 9.5F (5.3C) warmer than ANY other March in the past 90 years. That is so warm it would be a top ten warmest APRIL https://mobile.twitter.com/Pat_wx/status/1112766213913042945 At 14.4°C above normals, this past month was the most anomalous month on record in #Inuvik, including all months and both cold and warm anomalies! Note that February 2019 also made it into the top 10.

Emissions growth in United States, Asia fueled record carbon levels in 2018 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/emissions-growth-united-states-asia-fueled-record-carbon-levels-2018 Global carbon levels reached a record high last year, as surging demand for fossil fuels in the United States and Asia sent emissions soaring, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris said today. The 33.1 gigatons of energy-related carbon dioxide reported in 2018 represents a 1.7% increase over the previous year. It also means emissions have risen in each of the first two full years since the signing of the Paris climate agreement, leaving the world far short of the 26% to 28% cut in emissions targeted by 2025. We see that there is a growing disconnect between those calls and what is happening in the real markets,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a call announcing the findings. “Once again, we have a major increase in global CO2 emissions, which brings us further to reach the climate targets which were established by several countries internationally.” Surging energy consumption fueled by strong economic growth in the United States and Asia was the primary cause of the emissions spike, the agency said. Global energy consumption was up 2.3% in 2018, roughly double the average annual growth rate since 2010. Fossil fuels met almost 70% of the new demand for the second year running, with demand for natural gas especially strong. Global natural gas consumption was up 4.6%, while oil rose 1.3% and coal increased 0.7%. China, India, and the United States accounted for 70% of all energy demand and 85% of the net increase in emissions, IEA reported. Robert Jackson, a professor who tracks energy and climate policy at Stanford University, said the findings reflect the confluence of several long-term trends that could prod emissions even higher in the future. While coal use is declining in the United States and Europe, coal consumption is increasing in Asia, where governments have turned to the fuel to power economic development efforts. Strong economic growth in India saw coal consumption increase by roughly 5%, while coal generation was up 5.3% in China, according to IEA figures. At the same time, growing oil and natural gas use in the United States has offset emissions reductions associated with coal’s decline in America, Jackson said. “I don’t see global emissions dropping anytime soon,” Jackson said. “We had three years where global emissions were essentially flat. 2017 was a slight uptick. We wondered if it was a blip. It’s not. This increase in global emissions is real and more difficult to address than I expected.” There were some positives in the report for climate hawks, said Nathan Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability in College Park and a former Obama administration official. Solar deployment increased by more than 30% on the year, while wind was up 12%. Improvements in energy efficiency rates fell from 1.9% in 2018 to 1.3% in 2018, the fourth consecutive year of decline, but still were the largest source of global carbon abatement. The problem is those gains were offset by growing demand for fossil fuels, he said. “You have the solutions at hand,” Hultman said. “They need to be deployed more quickly, and this is what happens when you don’t.” In the United States, natural gas demand spiked 10%, or by 10 billion cubic meters, an increase roughly equivalent to the gas consumption of the United Kingdom. That spike was complemented by strong demand for oil, especially from the petrochemical sector. American oil demand was up by 540,000 barrels per day in 2018, the largest increase in the world. That resulted in a 3.1% increase in U.S. carbon emissions. Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. Copyright 2019. E&E provides essential news for energy and environment professionals at www.eenews.net.

Yeah, ocean heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense as the planet warms. https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ocean-heatwaves-devastate-wildlife-worse.html Invisible to people but deadly to marine life, ocean heatwaves have damaged ecosystems across the globe and are poised to become even more destructive, according to the first study to measure worldwide impacts with a single yardstick. The number of marine heatwave days has increased by more than 50 percent since the mid-20th century, researchers reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. "Globally, marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent and prolonged, and record-breaking events have been observed in most ocean basins in the past decade," said lead author Dan Smale, a researcher at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, Britain. Above the ocean watermark, on Earth's surface, 18 of the last 19 years have been the warmest on record, leading to more severe storms, droughts, heatwaves and flooding. "Just as atmospheric heatwaves can destroy crops, forests and animal populations, marine heatwaves can devastate ocean ecosystems," Smale told AFP. Compared to hot spells over land, which have claimed tens of thousands of lives since the start of the century, ocean heatwaves have received scant scientific attention. But sustained spikes in sea-surface temperatures can also have devastating consequences. A 10-week marine heatwave near western Australia in 2011, for example, shattered an entire ecosystem and permanently pushed commercial fish species into colder waters. Corals have been the marquee victims of shallow-water heatwaves, and face a bleak future. Even if humanity manages to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius—mission impossible, according to some scientists—up to 90 percent of corals are likely to die, the UN's top climate science body said in October. But other bedrock species have suffered too: the 2011 surge of heat killed off large swathes of seagrass meadows and kelp forests, along with the finfish and abalone that depend on them. Another ocean hot spell off the coast of California warmed waters by 6 C (10.8 F) and lasted for more than a year. Known at "The Blob", it generated toxic algae blooms, caused the closure of crab fisheries, and led to the death of sea lions, whales and sea birds. More frequent and intense ocean heatwaves also have a direct impact on people by reducing fisheries harvests and adding to global warming, the researchers noted. "Species of fish and crustaceans targeted for human consumption may be locally wiped out," Smale said. "And carbon stored by sea grasses and mangroves may be released if they are hit by extreme temperatures." To determine the full extent of marine heatwave impacts across different oceans, Smale and an international team from 19 research centres crunched data from more than 1,000 field studies that reported on how organisms and ecosystem responded. By definition, marine heatwaves last at least five days. Sea water temperatures for a given location are "extremely high"—the top 5-to-10 percent on record for that time and place. "Marine heatwaves can penetrate to hundreds of metres, though for our analysis we used data which only captures warming at the surface," Smale said. As manmade global warming heats the planet, oceans have absorbed some 90 percent of the extra heat generated. Without that heat sponge, air temperatures would be intolerably higher. Even if humanity does manage to cap global warming at "well below" 2C (3.6 F), as called for in the Paris climate treaty, marine heatwaves will sharply increase in frequency, intensity and duration, earlier research has shown. Explore further: Climate change multiplies harmful marine heatwaves (Update) More information: Dan A. Smale et al. Marine heatwaves threaten global biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services, Nature Climate Change (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0412-1 Journal reference: Nature Climate Change Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-ocean-heatwaves-devastate-wildlife-worse.html#jCp

Updated the list to include the 7th snowiest March so far at BDR with 13.5.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2019/03/04/bering-sea-ice-is-at-an-unprecedented-low-right-now/ Bering Sea ice is at an ‘unprecedented’ low right now Sea ice is again at a historic low in the Bering Sea. At the time of year when ice usually reaches its maximum, there’s open water in a vast area stretching from Bristol Bay to the Bering Strait, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “You could take your sailboat and sail from Dillingham all the way to Little Diomede and never see much more than an ice cube,” he said. March and early April are typically when sea ice in the Bering Sea reaches its maximum extent, and when communities that live along the coast travel on the ice for subsistence hunting and fishing. The unprecedented lack of ice in the Bering Sea follows another record-breaking winter. Last spring, in 2018, the extent of ice in the Bering Sea only reached half of its previous lowest size, which was recorded in 2001. Thoman called the lack of ice “stunning” at the time. This spring, the situation is even more extreme. While there’s more ice on the Russian side of the Bering Sea, there’s virtually none on the Alaska side. Watch the anomalous southerly flow push sea ice poleward through the Bering Strait since February https://mobile.twitter.com/ZLabe/status/1103690280576802818?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

March 3-4, 2019 Fairfield County... Monroe 12.0 640 AM 3/04 Trained Spotter 3 ESE Bethel 12.0 700 AM 3/04 CoCoRaHS

https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1101160230199603200?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet Very little #seaice left in Alaskan waters of the Bering Sea from AMSR2 data as continued storminess has eroded away near all of the ice south of 64N. The significant areas of open water in the southern Chukchi Sea and Kotzebue Sound just stunning. https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1101263457918234629?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet Suomi NPP image courtesy @uafgina early Thursday afternoon, February 28. The loss of #seaice in the Bering and southern Chukchi Seas is beyond belief. The impacts to western Alaskan communities immense. https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1101300151388332032?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet Utqiaġvik (Barrow) sets a new record high temperature for February 28. Through 3pm AKST, the high has been 33F (+0.6C), which nips the previous record of 32F (0.0C) set in 1960. This is the 6th day this month to set or tie a daily record high.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1099865227414331393 330pm AKST Sunday SNPP shows more of Kotzebue Sound. Ice completely pulled away from northern Seward Pen coast. Southern Chukchi Sea looks like more like late May/early June. Suomi NPP image 147pm AKST Sunday shows the weekend storm has decimated #seaice in the Bering Sea. Little more than "junk ice" anywhere in the open Bering Sea except near the Strait. Impacts on communities and ecosystems continue apace. Utqiaġvik (Barrow) high temp so far today 30F (-1.1C) is a new record high for February 24rd. Previous record 29F (-1.8C) in 2011 & fifth day this month to set or tie a daily record high. Climate obs since October 1920. #

https://mobile.twitter.com/ajatnuvuk/status/1093786714022105088 It’s February, the coldest month of the year. We have open water in front of Utqiagvik. It is 30 F out at 11:20 at night. Strange days indeed. https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1094296276730925056 Incredible warmth on the North Slope Friday, with temperatures in most places 30 to 50F (18-28C) above the daily normal! https://mobile.twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/1094017492580655105 MODIS image from Friday afternoon courtesy @uafgina showing impacts on #seaice in the northern Bering & southern Chukchi Seas of recent mild, stormy weather. A lot of water showing up, even significant areas north of the Bering Strait.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-climate-201812 December’s combined global land and ocean average surface temperature departure from average was the second warmest December in the 139-year record. With 11 of 12 monthly global land and ocean temperature departures from average ranking among the five warmest for their respective months, 2018 became the fourth warmest year in NOAA's 139-year record.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ZLabe/status/1092449357096353792 2018's average #Arctic sea ice extent was the 2nd lowest on record Data from consistent passive microwave satellite record (1979-2019)

It could be the trapped heat finally reaching the surface. https://www.carbonbrief.org/natural-ocean-fluctuations-help-explain-antarctic-sea-ice-changes/amp?__twitter_impression=true It is possible that this could explain why, during 2016, sea ice levels reached record lows, he adds: Although the overall magnitude of changes to ocean convection is not yet known, it is possible that the trapped heat could escape to the surface, Zhang says:

A solar minimum is no match for the CO2 forcing. There was a good paper out on this several years ago. As for the AMO, the sea ice was in decline during the last cold phase during the 80's into the mid-90's. Natural oscillations like the PDO and AMO can impact shorter term rates of decline. But the long term decline is a result of rising global and Arctic temperatures. https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/feulner/research/how-would-a-new-grand-minimum-of-solar-activity-affect-the-future-climate

Quick gains in Hudson Bay won't do anything for the long term volume downward trend. It's a peripheral region outside the main Arctic basin that completely melts out in the summer. So you can't retain any ice there since it's all first year.

It was quite high in the Hudson Bay, but not the Arctic. That's why the regional sea ice figures tell the bigger story.

No problem. Zack Labe does a great job putting together all the Arctic data in detail on his site. Patwx is a great resource on twitter for Canadian weather records. https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/ https://mobile.twitter.com/pat_wx?lang=en