so_whats_happening Posted July 25 Share Posted July 25 Latest extent map but man sea ice thickness has seemingly taken a hit this year. I couldnt get a date to match as there were many many gaps in last years data from the navy site. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbs Posted July 25 Share Posted July 25 Big area drop yesterday leaves 2024 #1. Area is jumpy and there was some flash melting ytday in the Beaufort that may come back to life in the next couple of days. Still this is turning out to be a big melt year. Key metrics like area and volume have been dropping fast since mid-June. Top 3 looking more and more likely. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbs Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 Per linked paper, the reflectivity of sea ice has decreased since 1980. SIRE in Figure below is sea ice radiative effect. The arctic decline has been steady, while the Antarctic experienced a regime change in 2016. "The planetary cooling effects of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice during 2016–2023 were about 20% and 12% less, respectively, than they were during 1980–1988. Disappearing sea ice is therefore amplifying climate change by causing Earth to absorb roughly an additional 0.3 W m−2 of solar power for each degree Celsius of global warming, a feedback that is stronger than that simulated by most climate models." https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109608 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbs Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 Area continues to tumble despite benign weather, as big Pacific losses continue. Clearly a 3 horse race now. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 10 hours ago, chubbs said: Area continues to tumble despite benign weather, as big Pacific losses continue. Clearly a 3 horse race now. That near record 500 mb block over the Arctic in June must have had a big effect since a favorable July pattern like this in the past would never have been accompanied by such a steep area decline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdgwx Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 Unsurprisingly global sea ice extent is at a record low for July 26th beating the previous record set in 2023. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdgwx Posted July 28 Share Posted July 28 The Kalshi prediction market shows a 28% chance of breaking the 2012 record. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forkyfork Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 area is lower than 2012 on this date 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobalt Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 8 minutes ago, forkyfork said: area is lower than 2012 on this date Where's that one post by Chesco touting the "highest sea ice to-date in 15 years" stat back in January? That has aged poorly. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobalt Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 47 minutes ago, Cobalt said: Where's that one post by Chesco touting the "highest sea ice to-date in 15 years" stat back in January? That has aged poorly. I'm falling victim to greenskeeper's one gimmick but I would pay money for a worded explanation of each weenie reaction. The Chesco mention of the highest sea ice to-date since 2009 didn't warrant a weenie, but the opposite example does? We need a synopsis on greenskeeper weenie methodology 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Looks like area losses are slowing enough to fall behind the steep pace that 2012 had in early August. So we are currently in 2nd place behind 2020. The period in early August was also when 2020 fell behind 2012. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rclab Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 3 hours ago, Cobalt said: Where's that one post by Chesco touting the "highest sea ice to-date in 15 years" stat back in January? That has aged poorly. 3 hours ago, Cobalt said: I'm falling victim to greenskeeper's one gimmick but I would pay money for a worded explanation of each weenie reaction. The Chesco mention of the highest sea ice to-date since 2009 didn't warrant a weenie, but the opposite example does? We need a synopsis on greenskeeper weenie methodology Good evening Cobalt. If we must be weenie victims, it’s best to be in the company of the professional and well versed posters that have also received them. Chessco may never move beyond his beliefs but he never, at least from what I’ve seen, moves from the civility of three dimensions to the less desirable two. greenskeeper uses the weenie as his post and reply. Reacting to it negatively is probably the desired outcome. Other than creating a weenie to post limit use, it will remain just a free meme to use. Stay well and your point/observation was in that sense valid. As always …. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted August 6 Share Posted August 6 Area fell into 3rd place behind 2012 and 2020. Loss rates have slowed just enough last week. Plus the next 7 days was when 2012 ran away with the lead. Record preconditioning that year with very strong May melt ponding and follow up strong summer dipole pattern. The great Arctic cyclone came during the next 7 days that year. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
so_whats_happening Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 Comparison of 2020 to 2024 at this time. It looks like the ESS is holding us up even with thickness as bad as it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csnavywx Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 On 8/6/2024 at 3:46 PM, bluewave said: Area fell into 3rd place behind 2012 and 2020. Loss rates have slowed just enough last week. Plus the next 7 days was when 2012 ran away with the lead. Record preconditioning that year with very strong May melt ponding and follow up strong summer dipole pattern. The great Arctic cyclone came during the next 7 days that year. I think this year proves a) how important even a short period of preconditioning in late May-mid June is and b) how with even favorable conditions for most of the melt season, it's getting to the point where even that's not enough. Just repeatedly ingesting these overheated continental airmasses is enough to whittle the remaining pack down. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbs Posted August 11 Share Posted August 11 Area losses slowed to a crawl this week. Dropping 2024 to #5 from top 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
so_whats_happening Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 On 8/9/2024 at 9:07 PM, csnavywx said: I think this year proves a) how important even a short period of preconditioning in late May-mid June is and b) how with even favorable conditions for most of the melt season, it's getting to the point where even that's not enough. Just repeatedly ingesting these overheated continental airmasses is enough to whittle the remaining pack down. It is really impressive to see that we saw such a large area loss with this type of pattern. It was a rather rough mid May to about mid June though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 On 8/9/2024 at 9:07 PM, csnavywx said: I think this year proves a) how important even a short period of preconditioning in late May-mid June is and b) how with even favorable conditions for most of the melt season, it's getting to the point where even that's not enough. Just repeatedly ingesting these overheated continental airmasses is enough to whittle the remaining pack down. We have seen this several times since 2012 when a shorter period with a strong dipole caused a steep drop. In order to surpass 2012 we need a more sustained dipole pattern on top of early season preconditioning. The early August extreme drop in 2012 hasn’t been able to be surpassed yet as we have seen again this year. What may eventually happen is that the steadily warming Arctic could eventually allow 2012 to be surpassed with shorter dipole pattern like we had this summer. But the Arctic hasn’t warmed to that point yet. But it will be interesting to see how things go in coming years. There was a recent new paper explaining why 2012 has been so tough to replicate. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/five-things-understand-about-ice-free-arctic Over the course of the entire satellite record, the average rate of Arctic sea ice loss is striking. If one looks at separate parts of the satellite record, different rates of ice loss emerge. Walter Meier has examined these different rates. He says, “From about 2002 to 2012, we had a pretty rapid decline in extent. September extents set new record lows in 2002, 2005, 2007, and 2012. But since 2007, the trend is essentially zero.” Meier cautions that this doesn’t imply any kind of Arctic sea ice recovery, only that 2012 remains the record holder. Greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to climb, so it’s possible that additional factors are at play. Dániel Topál suspects the principal other factor is natural variability. He doesn’t dispute the relationships between greenhouse-gas emissions, temperature, and sea ice, but he concludes natural variability will affect the timing of an ice-free Arctic to a greater degree than some other researchers have recognized. “Our paper says that models underestimate the atmospheric forcing influence, which is partially externally driven and partially internally driven,” he explains. catch, Topál explains, is that internal atmospheric variability has a bigger influence on Arctic temperatures than it has on global temperatures. He says, “In reanalyses, Arctic surface temperature trends are influenced by atmospheric circulation at least about 30 percent, but this effect seems to be missing in the models.” Topál suspects that ocean surface temperature variability as far away as the tropics could affect Arctic sea ice. “That’s probably what’s missing in the models right now. We still don't understand very much about it because our satellite observations are just nearly 50 years long and some of the oscillations in the Pacific can be up to 30 years,” he says. Even lacking certainty about Pacific oscillations, Topál can highlight natural variability in the Arctic climate, such as the Arctic Oscillation, that affects sea ice. “Atmospheric circulation between 2000 and 2012 was especially in favor of the anticyclonic circulation that increased the chances of rapid ice loss. Since 2013, we've seen a different circulation regime in the Arctic.” The record-low September 2012 Arctic sea ice minimum is a perfect example of the combination of long-term warming and weather. The minimum that summer was so far below the previous record that it appeared to foretell a grim future for the Arctic; it seemed possible that summer sea ice might decline to nearly nothing perhaps in a matter of years rather than decades. Since 2012, however, Arctic sea ice has not continued a significant decline. Although the September 2020 minimum came within roughly 430,000 square kilometers (170,000 square miles) of the record low, the 2012 record has not yet been matched. Obviously, 2012 being below average had a lot to do with the long-term trend. But the fact that it was record-low was due to the weather. Not only did Arctic atmospheric circulation favor sea ice decline in 2012, but there was another contributing factor. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported a strong storm centered over the Arctic in August of that year. The storm broke up the Arctic’s sea ice, driving down its extent, although the precise impact of this individual storm remains unclear. Storms are nothing new in the Arctic Ocean, but their influence on sea ice has grown over time. Dániel Topál says, “Weather events and storms definitely play a huge role. Sea ice is getting younger and younger, thinner and thinner.” Arctic sea ice is thinning because less ice survives summer melt seasons. Whereas ice that has survived multiple melt seasons is thick, rough, and resistant to melt, younger ice is vulnerable to storm-induced breakups. The same storm, encountering thicker ice, would likely have had less impact. “I think with the thinner, younger ice that’s in the Arctic now, there is the potential for even more sea ice variability,” Walter Meier says. Several years of [weather] conditions that favor ice growth, or at least ice preservation, would slow the arrival of an ice-free Arctic summer; a few years of extreme melt conditions or a few strong storms could hasten the arrival of ice-free conditions. But, Meier explains, weather conditions can’t be predicted more than about 10 days into the future. Furthermore, scientists don’t have a handle on potential changes in weather systems, such as Arctic storm intensity, that may emerge in coming decades. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typhoon Tip Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 14 hours ago, so_whats_happening said: It is really impressive to see that we saw such a large area loss with this type of pattern. It was a rather rough mid May to about mid June though. yeah not surprised that you and 'csnavywx' have also taken note of this. the summer AO basal teleconnector state has clearly been positive. in the canonical sense that's correlated better to ice retention ... not loss. it's pretty clearly 'threshold challenging' in my mind. behavior not matching clad inference that is based upon dense sampling history should be a red flag in every discipline of reality for that matter. lol seriously though - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted August 15 Author Share Posted August 15 We had a pretty favorable pattern for preconditioning from late May into mid-June but then it got less favorable late in June....you really want to sustain it longer to have a run at 2012. Still, it was enough to put a top 3 melt season in play as the data showed in my July post. 2012 was exceptionally well-preconditioned. It had like a 300k lead at the end of June on SSMI/S area compared to the cluster right behind it in the rankings which is a huge spread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbs Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 Despite the pattern change, melt indicators have remained elevated through July and August. Picking up again in the past week, per the top chart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 Looks like the daily area has actually dropped below 2012. Probably the biggest spread we have seen between area and extent in mid-August. So that dipole pattern back in June must have a very big influence. https://sites.google.com/view/arctic-sea-ice/home/about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typhoon Tip Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 23 minutes ago, bluewave said: Looks like the daily area has actually dropped below 2012. Probably the biggest spread we have seen between area and extent in mid-August. So that dipole pattern back in June must have a very big influence. https://sites.google.com/view/arctic-sea-ice/home/about How is 'extent' vs 'area' defined ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said: How is 'extent' vs 'area' defined ? A simplified way to think of extent versus area is to imagine a slice of swiss cheese. Extent would be a measure of the edges of the slice of cheese and all of the space inside it. Area would be the measure of where there is cheese only, not including the holes. Frequently Asked Questions on Arctic sea ice The block back in June set the all-time record for the highest 500mb heights over that section of the Russian Arctic for the month of June. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typhoon Tip Posted August 18 Share Posted August 18 I don’t need these metaphors really… Just say the radio latitude below which there’s no more ice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csnavywx Posted August 18 Share Posted August 18 Still some vulnerable ice that can be melted in the Beaufort and ESS. Almost all of this was gone by this point in 2012. CAA and CAB are below 2012 levels at this point (area wise). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluewave Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 Extent is lagging pretty far behind area like we saw in 2016. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forkyfork Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 what use is extent if thick solid ice and thin broken up floes count the same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
so_whats_happening Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 Unfortunately I can not get an image of 2012 but here is 2016, 2020, and 2024 at this time. Seriously thickness has gone to really low levels this year. Extent is not terrible as seen by bluewaves graphs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rclab Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 On 8/16/2024 at 1:57 PM, bluewave said: A simplified way to think of extent versus area is to imagine a slice of swiss cheese. Extent would be a measure of the edges of the slice of cheese and all of the space inside it. Area would be the measure of where there is cheese only, not including the holes. Frequently Asked Questions on Arctic sea ice The block back in June set the all-time record for the highest 500mb heights over that section of the Russian Arctic for the month of June. I appreciate the metaphor and thank you BW. It makes a lot more sense and is appreciated at my skill set then I imagine it would be to the professional Meteorologist. Stay well, as always ….. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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