Heat Content of the Arctic Ocean

[Vergent]

2011-2012 Surface Scale -2C to 7C

20 meters

30 meters

50 meters

100 meters

200 meters

300 meters

400 meters

500 meters

Generated on godiva2 the data is from this model:

http://www.ncof.co.u...-Modelling.html

[skierinvermont]

Looks like a lot more influx of Atlantic waters occurred this year. Although not sure if that had any bearing on the melt because the warm water is deep and mostly underneath areas that remained frozen.

[Vergent]

Looks like a lot more influx of Atlantic waters occurred this year. Although not sure if that had any bearing on the melt because the warm water is deep and mostly underneath areas that remained frozen.

It looks like about 1,000,000 km^3 poured in(the arctic basin is 4Mkm^2). The temperature anomaly is around +3C. That is enough heat to melt about 40,000 km^3 of ice.

This is the normal temp profile 2011 was close to normal.

[TerryM]

Vergent

Great find that deserves lots of study.

The deep intrusion from the Atlantic is notable, but the shallower heating along the Beaufort Sea may have done more damage to the ice. The melt water off the west coast of Greenland apparently had little effect on temperatures in Baffin Bay, and the 50m to 200m temperatures west of Svalbard being so much higher last year isn't what I would expect and the storm's mixing isn't apparent.

While I don't think the Atlantic had much effect on sea ice, it could well have been a factor in Greenland's problems. The top 30 meters of the Barents area also deserve more attention, I would have expected the light ice cover there last year to be followed with higher temperatures this year - possibly more heat radiated out during winter leaving the area cooler. The deeper warmth might indicate a larger cool fresh water layer that Atlantic waters sunk beneath. Perhaps there was so little saline FYI, that very little mixing occurred during the melt - a situation we might see a lot of next year.

Terry

[tacoman25]

It looks like about 1,000,000 km^3 poured in(the arctic basin is 4Mkm^2). The temperature anomaly is around +3C. That is enough heat to melt about 40,000 km^3 of ice.

This is the normal temp profile 2011 was close to normal.

And Friv wonders how the +AMO could possibly have a significant effect on the Arctic, just because the Atlantic only rises .2C...there is evidence that more Atlantic water flows into the Arctic during +AMO due to shifted ocean currents, and while that Atlantic water may only be a little warmer than normal for where it comes from, it's a lot warmer than typical Arctic ocean water.

[ORH_wxman]

And Friv wonders how the +AMO could possibly have a significant effect on the Arctic, just because the Atlantic only rises .2C...there is evidence that more Atlantic water flows into the Arctic during +AMO due to shifted ocean currents, and while that Atlantic water may only be a little warmer than normal for where it comes from, it's a lot warmer than typical Arctic ocean water.

Its also the entire north Atlantic north of the equator that warms 0.2C....not the waters near the Arctic. The far north Atlantic waters up near the arctic warm much more than that...as is evidence by the extremely warm SSTs off Iceland in the 1930s/1940s and Greenland.

[tacoman25]

Its also the entire north Atlantic north of the equator that warms 0.2C....not the waters near the Arctic. The far north Atlantic waters up near the arctic warm much more than that...as is evidence by the extremely warm SSTs off Iceland in the 1930s/1940s and Greenland.

Yes, I pointed that out to him before as well. As usual, no response.

[Vergent]

Vergent

Great find that deserves lots of study.

The deep intrusion from the Atlantic is notable, but the shallower heating along the Beaufort Sea may have done more damage to the ice. The melt water off the west coast of Greenland apparently had little effect on temperatures in Baffin Bay, and the 50m to 200m temperatures west of Svalbard being so much higher last year isn't what I would expect and the storm's mixing isn't apparent.

While I don't think the Atlantic had much effect on sea ice, it could well have been a factor in Greenland's problems. The top 30 meters of the Barents area also deserve more attention, I would have expected the light ice cover there last year to be followed with higher temperatures this year - possibly more heat radiated out during winter leaving the area cooler. The deeper warmth might indicate a larger cool fresh water layer that Atlantic waters sunk beneath. Perhaps there was so little saline FYI, that very little mixing occurred during the melt - a situation we might see a lot of next year.

Terry

Thank you, I was expecting this. Remember the "arctic flush" in that paper.

The warm North Atlantic surface current can pour over the ice free shelf edge along the Barents and Kara. It slides down the slope and finds its thermohaline strata and spreads out. This forces a greater deep cold current out the Fram(thus the lower temperatures west of Svalbard.

Its still pouring in. It may not quite be 1,000,000km^3 yet, but the warming is still growing.

Verg

[TerryM]

I'm not sure how much effect the Atlantic has once it dives beneath the fresher surface waters. My understanding is that very little thermal transfer takes place between the strata. The Arctic ocean, unlike other bodies of water, gets warmer as you go deeper due to the greater salt content of the warmer water. Wherever this stratification gets disrupted you get polynya formation, usually due to currents striking inclining shelves.

For what it's worth, ocean currents are usually measured in Sverdrups (Sv) equal to 10⁶ cubic m/sec - or about the total outflow of all the worlds rivers.

Terry

[The_Global_Warmer]

Yes, I pointed that out to him before as well. As usual, no response.

And Friv wonders how the +AMO could possibly have a significant effect on the Arctic, just because the Atlantic only rises .2C...there is evidence that more Atlantic water flows into the Arctic during +AMO due to shifted ocean currents, and while that Atlantic water may only be a little warmer than normal for where it comes from, it's a lot warmer than typical Arctic ocean water.

1. As usual your guessing the ocean circulations are the cause of that. GUESSING. You have no evidence waters 1-2C above normal over a large area due the AMO, it might be sometimes, but the AMO is also so much warmer than historically speaking this point the changes from GHG warming have at least brought even to the AMO ups and downs if not passed them. how can I address Idle speculation. That will lead to an impasse and get the discussion no where.

2. You offer so little research on this topic what's the point? Your guessing there is some amplification based on a loose correlation never proving over 25-30%. What am I supposed to say to that?

3. The charts above are not about the AMO at all.

4. Benvols posted a study that presumed a max ice loss of 30CM in the Eurasian basin, mostly around the Greenland Sea in sea ice thickness reduction. The Laptev had 4-8CM and the rest of the arctic basin had none form the pool of water 150M to 300M pending location on the ice associated with a warm pulse.

5. Skier and ORH said the warm layer below the ice in the Beaufort would have very little effect and mixing that was 2-3C above freeze point in many locations and typically 30-40M below the fresh water layer. So I am not sure what the warm water under the arctic has to do with the AMO.

6. The Atlantic is not governed by the AMO, it's just a made up index of the surface waters. But it's also not a one way force. It's very plausible and real that the arctic sea ice reductions, snow cover reductions, GHG amplification have a major effect on the AMO index itself outside of the GW signal, on top of a causality string of feedbacks causing the AMO index to be artificially inflated. If you deny that, you deny basic physics.

7. Some real time and real life analysis.

Per normal the Gulf Stream heads to Nordics.

The Surface warmth in Canada was very warm, the surface flow predominately brought a lot of heat into the Baffin, US/Canda Eastern Sea Board and out to the central North Atlantic. The Gulf Stream ended up with cooler air at the point where it meets the arctic.

This is easy to see at 925mb as well.

below is a crude example of how the AMO works. The black circled region is where the AMO pulse starts. Those cooler waters sink and move west into the Gulf Stream at some point. The current is clear and where it ends up being deposited again coming back to the surface or so it's said, but since it's dependent on Weather, it's hard to say.

The currents along Greenland and Canada bring cooler waters South along North America and into the NW Atlantic. The term cooler is relative to normal, in this case arctic amplification.

The blue arrow points to a eddy region where the warm gulf stream waters get pulled back North. I wanted to make sure I point that out, I know nit-picking alwyas ensue's.

Again last winter when the AMO went negative for a time the waters at the origion point were the reason with the Baffin Bay.

Again the heat along North America was from land based warmth. Like this Summer.

Even if we are in a +AMO cycle still. The AMO is up and down, but we need to account for natural factors as well when determining when the AMO shifts from negative to positive. We also can't assume the AMO did it without investigating, the AMO index is going to be near record highs for September and I just made a very strong case that it wasn't from the thermocline. Secondly the AMO is typically never as high as it is now it without a stronger NINO.

Futhermore the AMO index and I have looked through it for 10 min has never exploded from negative to positive at the rate nor disscrepency we saw this winter to summer.

it is true that in many cases it can go down in winter and up in summer, but I can't find another year where it just exploded at this level on top of that the culprit is regions under large scale arctic amplification.

There is also evidence if you take out 1991 volcanoes the AMO flipped in 1987 not 1996. That would make a bit more sense and also mean we could be flipping negative now.

2012

-0.035

0.034

0.054

0.115

0.197

0.338

0.418

0.474

SInce you won't stop calling me out why don't you adress me in your words, not someone's literature, not ORH or Skier, why don't you break out some analysis and graphs if think this is crap and I am avoiding this issue, I've begged for this kind of breakdowns instead of guessing and assuming for a long time, even in the middle of an AMO+ regime the AMO+ could be negative for a few year, we have very little historic knowledge of this pattern.

[ORH_wxman]

Friv the AMO as most decribe it is detrended....stop obsessing over the global warming signal beneath on the one measurment of the AMO that doesn't account for the trend. DETRENDED means you can stop talking about any underlying warming signal and only isolate the north atlantic signal.

I'm not sure why you refuse to acknowledge this...unless you keep reading Tamino who is obsessed with the global warming signal controlling our ocean oscillations despite them being detrended which is absolutely laughable.

[bluewave]

Thank you, I was expecting this. Remember the "arctic flush" in that paper.

The warm North Atlantic surface current can pour over the ice free shelf edge along the Barents and Kara. It slides down the slope and finds its thermohaline strata and spreads out. This forces a greater deep cold current out the Fram(thus the lower temperatures west of Svalbard.

Its still pouring in. It may not quite be 1,000,000km^3 yet, but the warming is still growing.

Verg

This influx of warm waters was discussed in a recent paper.

http://rd.springer.c...0382-012-1454-5

The heat budget of the upper Arctic Ocean is examined in an ensemble of coupled climate models under idealised increasing CO₂ scenarios. All of the experiments show a strong amplification of surface air temperatures but a smaller increase in sea surface temperature than the rest of the world as heat is lost to the atmosphere as the sea-ice cover is reduced. We carry out a heat budget analysis of the Arctic Ocean in an ensemble of model runs to understand the changes that occur as the Arctic becomes ice free in summer. We find that as sea-ice retreats heat is lost from the ocean surface to the atmosphere contributing to the amplification of Arctic surface temperatures. Furthermore, heat is mixed upwards into the mixed layer as a result of increased upper ocean mixing and there is increased advection of heat into the Arctic as the ice edge retreats. Heat lost from the upper Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere is therefore replenished by mixing of warmer water from below and by increased advection of warm water from lower latitudes. The ocean is therefore able to contribute more to Arctic amplification.

[tacoman25]

Friv the AMO as most decribe it is detrended....stop obsessing over the global warming signal beneath on the one measurment of the AMO that doesn't account for the trend. DETRENDED means you can stop talking about any underlying warming signal and only isolate the north atlantic signal.

I'm not sure why you refuse to acknowledge this...unless you keep reading Tamino who is obsessed with the global warming signal controlling our ocean oscillations despite them being detrended which is absolutely laughable.

Exactly. If he can't decipher the natural trends within the AGW signal, then the point is completely lost on him.

[TerryM]

Friv the AMO as most decribe it is detrended....stop obsessing over the global warming signal beneath on the one measurment of the AMO that doesn't account for the trend. DETRENDED means you can stop talking about any underlying warming signal and only isolate the north atlantic signal.

I'm not sure why you refuse to acknowledge this...unless you keep reading Tamino who is obsessed with the global warming signal controlling our ocean oscillations despite them being detrended which is absolutely laughable.

Actually the AMO is alway detrended , and, as I recall from another thread, we tried for a day or two to get anyone who had been spouting the ludicrous position that the AMO was responsible for more than a small percentage of the damage being wrought in the Arctic to agree on which method of detrending they would be happy with.

When no one answered such a basic question it became painfully obvious that while they were happy to ascribe huge influence to the index, they were saddened at having to define it.

Dr Mann came up with an interesting measure in the AMO, his work has always been found to be of the highest caliber - even when intensely scrutinized. His detractors have been found to be wrong so many times that I'd hesitate to question anything he wrote.

Terry

[ben4vols]

below is a crude example of how the AMO works. The black circled region is where the AMO pulse starts. Those cooler waters sink and move west into the Gulf Stream at some point. The current is clear and where it ends up being deposited again coming back to the surface or so it's said, but since it's dependent on Weather, it's hard to say.

I've read around half the Atlantic Water comes into the Arctic through the Fram and the other half takes a detour around and through the Barents after which a % flows into the Arctic.

[Vergent]

I am predicting an ice free August 2013. this is solid, it's based on simple physics. It just has to do with the density of water(Hint #1;maybe you should look at "the heat content of the Arctic Ocean" post #1). Too bad. Ice bye bye. Ice does not do well in a +6C hot tub.

Hint #2 Hear is a seawater density calculator;

http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2odenscalc.html

(you need to multiply GODIVA2 salinity by 1000 and subtract 273.15 from GODIVA2 potential temperature.)

Hint #3 here is GODIVA2

http://data.ncof.co....MS/godiva2.html

1. choose the + next to global-arctic(if global arctic does not have a + use global ocean)
   
2. click on "potential temperature" or "salinity"
   
3. click the blue plus under the hand
   
4. choose "arctic sterographic" from the blue menu
   
5. click "auto" next to the scale bar
   
6. clicking on the map will give exact data for the point you click.
   
7. If you want to look at a different parameter on the left menu click the blue plus under the hand and choose "srtm dem"
   
8. choose what you want from the left menu
   
9. go back to 3
   
10. Hint #4; look at the density of the 6C warm water at 200m now, and the density of the cold water 20m under the ice last April.
    

Probability of an ice free arctic next year = 1.0(It has nothing to do with the weather).

Another prediction; next year at this time the deniers will be pointing fingers and erasing posts, maybe even changing names, switching forums, or collecting their severance pay. The realists can then use this forum to figure out what we should have done 30 years ago and inscribe it on a golden tablet and fire it off into space where it might do some good.

Amen

edit; bad link

[Vergent]

P.S. do it on the atlantic side.

[Msalgado]

Another prediction; next year at this time the deniers will be pointing fingers and erasing posts, maybe even changing names, switching forums, or collecting their severance pay. The realists can then use this forum to figure out what we should have done 30 years ago and inscribe it on a golden tablet and fire it off into space where it might do some good.

Amen

edit; bad link

Man, with effective communicators like you and Terry its no wonder the AGW debate is in the current state its in.

[WeatherRusty]

Man, with effective communicators like you and Terry its no wonder the AGW debate is in the current state its in.

Give me a break, the public "debate" is in the state it is in for one reason and one reason only. The deniers.

[WeatherRusty]

Friv the AMO as most decribe it is detrended....stop obsessing over the global warming signal beneath on the one measurment of the AMO that doesn't account for the trend. DETRENDED means you can stop talking about any underlying warming signal and only isolate the north atlantic signal.

I'm not sure why you refuse to acknowledge this...unless you keep reading Tamino who is obsessed with the global warming signal controlling our ocean oscillations despite them being detrended which is absolutely laughable.

Why would you look to a metric which by design removes the trend, when what you are most concerned with is the trend? The detrended AMO is meaningless to a discussion of global warming.

This is particularly emphasized with consideration that ocean oscillations can not add to the heat content of the globe.

This is just a cleaver way of calling into question the AGW contribution to the measured 0.33C increase in global SSTs over the past century.

[TerryM]

Why would you look to a metric which by design removes the trend, when what you are most concerned with is the trend? The detrended AMO is meaningless to a discussion of global warming.

This is particularly emphasized with consideration that ocean oscillations can not add to the heat content of the globe.

This is just a cleaver way of calling into question the AGW contribution to the measured 0.33C increase in global SSTs over the past century.

Very well put!

Terry

[The_Global_Warmer]

Why would you look to a metric which by design removes the trend, when what you are most concerned with is the trend? The detrended AMO is meaningless to a discussion of global warming.

This is particularly emphasized with consideration that ocean oscillations can not add to the heat content of the globe.

This is just a cleaver way of calling into question the AGW contribution to the measured 0.33C increase in global SSTs over the past century.

Technically speaking there won't be another -AMO cycle. Given the trends of GHG's, the next -AMO will likely be like the last positive AMO. Eventually the natural signal will be so washed out it will just go up.