Predict 2014 Arctic Sea Ice

[skierinvermont]

Using:

 

JaxaV2: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_v2_L.png

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/plot_v2.csv

 

CT_Area: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

 

 

Last year was 4.81 extent and 3.55 area

 

2012 was 3.18 extent and 2.23 area

 

Will do another one in May then maybe monthly after that. Just curious what pre-season thought are after last year and part way through winter.

[The_Global_Warmer]

My prelim is 4.75 mil km2 on Jaxa and 3.2 mil km2 on ct for area.

 

The MYI is a lot better and thicker.  Especially over the cab.  Of course the MYI moved way West around this time last year but it's doing it this year.

 

We lost a lot of MYI early on but most of it was 2nd year ice with a reasonable amount of 3-5 yr old ice around the pole and North of GIS.  But there is a lot more on the Pacific side right now that is expected to stay pretty lodged the next 10-15 days. 

 

We can see it's really moved out towards the Chuchki and ESB. 

 

Now remember this isn't absolute MYI but a rough outline and a darker color doesn't = thicker necessarily.  This is more a measure of temperatue brightness.  It means colder which implys thicker ice that the scanner can't pick up any heat from the water below.  We can see the snow over land goes from white through the blue spectrum. 

 

I am assuming GIS is greenish = uber cold.  I don't know exactly.  We can see the Siberian snow cover so far is quite a bit thinner than last year at this time. 

 

Never the less.  My prediction is based on the weather being at least middle between a DPA and last year and factoring the thicker MYI.

 

I'd say if things go normal for the last decade through April.  We could realistically if we get another Summer like last year be around 5.5 mil extent, 3.7 area.  If we get a 2012, 2011, or 2007 like Summer we will probably be back down around 4.0-4.5 mil extent 2.8-3.0 area.

 

 

 

 

[ORH_wxman]

You have to remember Jaxa is about 200,000-300,000 sq km lower than what we traditionally are used to though skier put the newer value in the original post for lats year's min.

[StudentOfClimatology]

This is a tough forecast. With the QBO dropping and a healthy Brewer Dobson ozone flux into the polar stratosphere, we may not have the strong vortex over the pole like we did last summer.

That doesn't preclude a negative dipole circulation, but I don't think it'll be as cold up there this year as it was in 2013.

[The_Global_Warmer]

That is a good point.  I totally forgot.  I edited mine to 4.75km2 on jaxa.  My original vote can't be changed but it's close enough. 

[The_Global_Warmer]

This is a tough forecast. With the QBO dropping and a healthy Brewer Dobson ozone flux into the polar stratosphere, we may not have the strong vortex over the pole like we did last summer.

That doesn't preclude a negative dipole circulation, but I don't think it'll be as cold up there this year as it was in 2013.

 

 

We will have to keep an eye on how the Siberian snow cover does in Spring.  It has consistently melted out 2-3 weeks early for a while now regardless of pattern. 

 

 

So far this year as of late December snow cover was at historic record lows going back to the late 1800s to early 1900s over most of Siberia. Colder air and a return to snowier conditions have started up.  But as of now snow depth is still lacking tremendously over most of Eurasia. 

 

 

I found this.  It's snow depth in cm from NCEP daily reanalysis I suppose.  For those who are not familiar with the Russian terrain.  Those higher splotches over Northern and Eastern Siberia are mountain ranges.  So I posted a Russian topography map below. 

 

The higher land and mountain regions are showing 75-100CM+.  Which isn't bad.  But to the South and West it's been rough so far but has improved from a month ago.

 

 

[SVT450R]

I'm liking the thicker MYI spread out should help for the melt season.  I also agree with others who have stated about not seeing another optimum/cool melt season as we seen for 2013 but maybe not as harsh as some of the more recent year we have had.

[AvantHiatus]

Should be the most important poll ever. This is a key year to see if we can carry the historic momentum of 2013 into the future. I'm under the impression that passing below 1.5 km2 is a tipping point for an ice-free arctic, hard to believe we will come close to that this year.

 

A continuous EPO block pattern like currently, occuring in March or April would be a trainwreck for arctic stability, lets hope it does not happen.

 

Thinking in the end we will see a year slightly above 2012 in ice coverage and a little below 2011 in CT area.

[skierinvermont]

4.5 and 3.2... I should have included PIOMAS as well.. in the May poll I will. 

 

Also why would under 1.5 be a tipping point but 2.2 was followed by the biggest one year jump ever?

 

Studies have repeatedly shown that there is no tipping point and that even after artificially removing all ice from the arctic it recovers to its previous state within a few years. The climate conditions need to support an ice free state before an ice free state will occur. Further AGW will be required. 

[AvantHiatus]

4.5 and 3.2... I should have included PIOMAS as well.. in the May poll I will. 

 

Also why would under 1.5 be a tipping point but 2.2 was followed by the biggest one year jump ever?

 

Studies have repeatedly shown that there is no tipping point and that even after artificially removing all ice from the arctic it recovers to its previous state within a few years. The climate conditions need to support an ice free state before an ice free state will occur. Further AGW will be required. 

Alot of backlash from realistic claims (mabye not this year but it will inevitably happen), one has to extrapolate from the conditions required to melt the ice down to 1.5 km2. The water would probably warm up enough to make a 4.0+km2 year impossible and then you gradually go down from there.

 

I think our current AGW forcing is enough for a brief ice free window in September. Alot of energy is going into melting snow and ice in the spring and summer currently.

 

On the flipside, if sea ice extent can go from 3.1 km2 to 5.0 km2 in one year then there is no reason to rule out a rapid decline back towards 2012 levels.

 

 

 

The most conservative ice-melt predictions come from computer simulations, and give us another 40 or so years under current conditions before we can expect ice-free Arctic summers (defined as a September ice extent of 1 million km² or less). The prediction from the UK Met Office is slightly more pessimistic, suggesting "an earliest plausible date for an ice free summer in the Arctic [of] 2025-2030".³

[Jonger]

Paul Beckwith.

[ORH_wxman]

4.65 and 3.10. I'll probably up it a bit if we go through February with the negative dipole continuing to be the dominant pattern preventing big fram export.

 

The error bars will be huge on these predictions until we get to June.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Alot of backlash from realistic claims (mabye not this year but it will inevitably happen), one has to extrapolate from the conditions required to melt the ice down to 1.5 km2. The water would probably warm up enough to make a 4.0+km2 year impossible and then you gradually go down from there.

 

I think our current AGW forcing is enough for a brief ice free window in September. Alot of energy is going into melting snow and ice in the spring and summer currently.

 

On the flipside, if sea ice extent can go from 3.1 km2 to 5.0 km2 in one year then there is no reason to rule out a rapid decline back towards 2012 levels.

 

 

There isn't any reason to rule it out. Another 2007 would accomplish it.  A 2012 pattern probably could get it to 3.8-4.0 million. But those were extreme and as unlikely as 2013 is to repeat itself assuming the dominant -NAO doesn't return.   While it's not that much Co2 PPM during the summer of 2007 was around 386-388PPM over the arctic.

 

This summer it wil be around 405-407PPM.  Not a big deal but radiative forcing has increased slightly of course. 

 

 

My point is.  The exact same pattern technically would be worse because radiative forcing is stronger so solar insolation would be stronger but not by much. 

 

Methane PPB will be about 100PPB higher since 2007 this summer over the arctic.

 

It sure doesn't seem like a lot.  But by 2020 arctic Co2 levels will be at 421-425PPM.  by 2030 about 460PPM.

 

methane is a crap shoot pending how fast it starts to be released.

 

 

The thing is that it's a short lived gas.  As human based emissions dropped off to a point where levels remained almost steady from 1995 to 2007 with only a small increase. 

 

All of a sudden because of the arctic methane has started to rise and rise faster.  Let's put it another way we went from cryosphere methane release having no impact on methane levels to driving them upwards on it's own.

 

While it seems unfathomable that we will see methane expotentially increase at some point.  We are seeing this take place and we are only 1.5.-2C+ on GISS for arctic temps vs the last 133 years. 

 

What the hell is going to happen when the arctic is 4-5C warmer?  How about 7-9C?. 

 

 

I hope we get further study into how realistic that is. Having thousands and thousands of small plumes exhausting huge amounts of methane in very small areas from warming is scary considering those small release points could grow so fast and so big to be out of control. 

 

The arctic warming isn't localized. The methane release is because only a small part of the methane stores have reached critical dethaw and release levels.

 

We have no idea how much more warming can set off their friends. 

 

[AvantHiatus]

Interesting documentary about the methane threat (Please ignore the slight alarmism, there is factual information as well).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRGVTK-AAvw

[ORH_wxman]

We should probably keep the methane talk to this thread:

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/30926-this-is-not-good/page-25?