Arctic Sea Ice Extent, Area, and Volume

[bluewave]

20 hours ago, bdgwx said:

Also per the NSIDC 5-day average 10/17/2019 marks the all time highest negative anomaly on record. We are 3.065 sq km below the 1981-2010 climatological average. This breaks the 3.048 record set on 10/9/2012. In other words, we have less sea ice (in terms of extent) relative to average that at any point in the satellite era.

That anomaly grew a little from yesterday. Now at -3.075 as of October 18th. So 2019 continues as the lowest at 5.310 compared to the 5.663 in 2007 and 5.852 in 2012.

 

[donsutherland1]

On October 20, Arctic sea ice extent on JAXA was 5,625,765 square kilometers. That is both the lowest on record for the date and the latest figure below 6 million square kilometers in record . The previous daily record low was 6,136,029 square kilometers from last year.

[bluewave]

2019 continues to expand its record breaking daily low extents for late October. The NSIDC 5 day extent is now 5.503 million sq km as of October 20th. This is well below the previous lowest for the date set in 2007 at. 5.946 million sq km. It also places this year 726 k lower than 2012 which was 6.229 million sq km. 
 

 

[forkyfork]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

2019 continues to expand its record breaking daily low extents for late October. The NSIDC 5 day extent is now 5.503 million sq km as of October 20th. This is well below the previous lowest for the date set in 2007 at. 5.946 million sq km. It also places this year 726 k lower than 2012 which was 6.229 million sq km. 2012 was the previous lowest October monthly average extent at 5.890 million sq km.

currently in a hostile fram export pattern

[Typhoon Tip]

On 10/17/2019 at 3:42 PM, bluewave said:

The Arctic Ocean must have absorbed an impressive  amount of heat over the summer. Current 5 day NSIDC extent as of 10-16 is 5.170 million sq km. Extent was 5.422 on 10-16-12.  So the unusually slow extent gain pattern continues.

 

Mm ... From what source.. ?

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Mm ... From what source.. ?

This was the warmest June through September melt season on record.The earlier areas of open water had more time to absorb the extra heat. So now it’s taking longer for the Arctic Ocean to release the extra heat back to the atmosphere. Perhaps warm water influx through the Bering Strait also played a role. But I have no way of measuring that.
 

 

Recent winds (drift circulation) and warmer ocean waters from heat gained during the early spring melt-out

 

 

[csnavywx]

Looks like the ESS and Laptev are finally starting to freeze from both sides. That usually results in a quick jump in extent numbers as two ice fronts develop temporarily. Once that's done (by first or second week of Nov), the Pacific side will be the place to watch. Lots of heat to bleed off in the Chukchi and western Beaufort seas. Depending on how the weather goes, those might not freeze over until the new year. The southern Chukchi has a chance of not completely freezing over at all or only for a brief period in Jan-Mar. The warm water there is particularly deep this year.

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, csnavywx said:

Looks like the ESS and Laptev are finally starting to freeze from both sides. That usually results in a quick jump in extent numbers as two ice fronts develop temporarily. Once that's done (by first or second week of Nov), the Pacific side will be the place to watch. Lots of heat to bleed off in the Chukchi and western Beaufort seas. Depending on how the weather goes, those might not freeze over until the new year. The southern Chukchi has a chance of not completely freezing over at all or only for a brief period in Jan-Mar. The warm water there is particularly deep this year.

This is going to be a bit OT but did you see the new research on the dinosaur extinction asteroid?  The new research indicates that oceans quickly acidified killing sea life on a global scale rather quickly.  I wonder if climate change induced ocean acidification could do something similar?

 

[csnavywx]

I'm still reading through that paper. From what I've read so far, the change is on the order of 0.25 pH post-impact. We've had around 0.15 of change so far, but this hasn't eaten into the aragonite buffer enough to cause undersaturation at the surface or in the mixed layer in most locales so far. That is due to change sometime in the 2030s in the Southern Ocean and the waters next to Antarctica (where colder SSTs allow more gas to dissolve). From there it will spread rapidly across seasons and area.

It's not talked about much and my suspicion is that it won't be until that starts to occur.

[etudiant]

4 hours ago, csnavywx said:

I'm still reading through that paper. From what I've read so far, the change is on the order of 0.25 pH post-impact. We've had around 0.15 of change so far, but this hasn't eaten into the aragonite buffer enough to cause undersaturation at the surface or in the mixed layer in most locales so far. That is due to change sometime in the 2030s in the Southern Ocean and the waters next to Antarctica (where colder SSTs allow more gas to dissolve). From there it will spread rapidly across seasons and area.

It's not talked about much and my suspicion is that it won't be until that starts to occur.

That is a  stunning change. Is there a reference which you could point me to? I've seen some reports, but nothing that suggests global loss of alkalinity on that scale.

[bluewave]

On 10/21/2019 at 3:45 PM, forkyfork said:

currently in a hostile fram export pattern

It sure is.

 

[LibertyBell]

On 10/22/2019 at 5:31 PM, csnavywx said:

I'm still reading through that paper. From what I've read so far, the change is on the order of 0.25 pH post-impact. We've had around 0.15 of change so far, but this hasn't eaten into the aragonite buffer enough to cause undersaturation at the surface or in the mixed layer in most locales so far. That is due to change sometime in the 2030s in the Southern Ocean and the waters next to Antarctica (where colder SSTs allow more gas to dissolve). From there it will spread rapidly across seasons and area.

It's not talked about much and my suspicion is that it won't be until that starts to occur.

The 2030s are when the Great Barrier Reef is predicted to be completely gone- to the massive detriment of the marine ecosystem!

[bluewave]

NSIDC put out a tweet about the new record departure.
 

 

[csnavywx]

On 10/22/2019 at 9:53 PM, etudiant said:

That is a  stunning change. Is there a reference which you could point me to? I've seen some reports, but nothing that suggests global loss of alkalinity on that scale.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/uoaf-soa031119.php

 

This is just concerning the appearance of a widespread undersaturation horizon near/in the mixed layer in the next 20 years or so.

 

https://www.pnas.org/content/105/48/18860

 

 

It's an older paper, but we are very closely following the emissions scenario used (IS92a), so these dates probably aren't far off. Once aragonite undersaturation appears at the surface, it takes just 20-30 years for it to encompass basically entire Southern Ocean south of 50-60S.

If we screw around long enough, by near the end of the century, that will spread towards the tropics and then calcite undersaturation will appear in the Southern Ocean. Once calcite is knocked out, you can kiss most shelled creatures goodbye.

 

 

The thresholds for this seem to be at ~450 and ~650ppm. We're rapidly coming up on the first one.

[csnavywx]

Additional paper:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2844

[etudiant]

Thank you, csnavywx, very helpful links. Even without ability to pass the paywall, the summaries and the charts tell the story. The charts especially are pretty alarming.

Sadly, seen that coal fired power plant construction is still very strong, particularly in China and India, i see no possibility of arresting the CO2 uptrend. We will see this future, like it or not.

[csnavywx]

1 hour ago, etudiant said:

Thank you, csnavywx, very helpful links. Even without ability to pass the paywall, the summaries and the charts tell the story. The charts especially are pretty alarming.

Sadly, seen that coal fired power plant construction is still very strong, particularly in China and India, i see no possibility of arresting the CO2 uptrend. We will see this future, like it or not.

You can always use Sci-hub!

Chances are your taxes were used to fund the research anyways. (This paper has the following comment listed in acknowledgements: We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation Ocean AcidificationProgram (OCE-1314209). This is IPRC publication no. 1152 and SOEST publicationno. 9508. )

[csnavywx]

2 hours ago, etudiant said:

Thank you, csnavywx, very helpful links. Even without ability to pass the paywall, the summaries and the charts tell the story. The charts especially are pretty alarming.

Sadly, seen that coal fired power plant construction is still very strong, particularly in China and India, i see no possibility of arresting the CO2 uptrend. We will see this future, like it or not.

Yeah, the transition time from supersaturated to undersaturated is very short, on the order of ~20 years and every one of those papers focuses on the 2030s as the onset date. 450ppm seems to be the threshold. It starts small in areal extent and depth, but once onset begins, it takes very little time to overtake virtually the entire Southern Ocean in wintertime and begins to encroach on mid-latitude waters with rather alarming speed. I can't imagine that's going to be good for some species (as the authors rightly point out). It also kind of forms a pincer, in that, species will be migrating towards the poles as acidification migrates towards the equator, putting the squeeze on species adaption.

[LibertyBell]

On 10/26/2019 at 7:51 PM, etudiant said:

Thank you, csnavywx, very helpful links. Even without ability to pass the paywall, the summaries and the charts tell the story. The charts especially are pretty alarming.

Sadly, seen that coal fired power plant construction is still very strong, particularly in China and India, i see no possibility of arresting the CO2 uptrend. We will see this future, like it or not.

I am sick and tired of excuses being made for these "developing nations"  Time to punish them financially for relying on outdated, polluting technology.  Also, oil and nat gas are contributing factors, especially with the fracking "boom" contributing to methane leaks.  Nuclear would be a far better option.

 

[LibertyBell]

Thought I should post this update, especially with the recent historic forest fires all over California and now in Los Angeles!

 

https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1188160398320656385

 

The climate science is settled on direct causal links to California wildfires.  

 

Whether it is drier droughts, or whiplashes to wetness, the jet stream is acting freakishly.  

 

The fingerprints of climate change are all over this current event.

 

https://t.co/avouF71zBo?amp=1

 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Scientists-see-fingerprints-of-climate-change-all-13128585.php

 

 

[BillT]

the "climate" is a set of statistics, it is not a force and claims it is causing fires in california this year are insane beyond belief......

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, BillT said:

the "climate" is a set of statistics, it is not a force and claims it is causing fires in california this year are insane beyond belief......

Let me ask you something, when a given set of statistic that looks sorta like this  ... 

what do you see? 

[Typhoon Tip]

An important logical flaw in "the climate doesn't cause " arguments is that it seems the denier is too myopic and linear-dimensional in their cause-and-effect grasping.  Perhaps it's a mental capacity ... Or a moral one.  

"Climate" does not maintain an operational presence in the daily dynamical interactivity that takes place in the environment. There is a population ballast that cannot seem to make the next leap of reasoning.  

Climate used to simply be 100 day, 100 temps, sum(t)/n-terms = the temperature climate across that hundred days.  But here's the rub ... that number doesn't tell you anything about the 'character' of your data, whether those temperatures are trending up, or down .. the nature of the extremes ( anomalies) etc.  What climate is now, is a description of those tendencies - and it is patently clear this latter aspect is untenable either by personal choice, or personal limitation is said ballast. Because not only is it rising, that rise is no longer linear.. It's curved upward. IF the frequency of big anomalies in a system is also increasing, and, that increase naturally connotes thus the probability of those events are also, and MATCHES what is presently happening ( yet exceeds) it must therefore be statistical significant.

By and large - and this can be at times the writing of the scientist, sure - when one mentions the term climate in deference to wild fires, flood food or famine ...tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards and so forth... they are not saying the climate "caused" the event, they are saying:   

You are in a climate that favors these things happening - more over ... a NEW one ( ding ding: what do we call that, class!?) 

 

[BillT]

i see meaningless jibberish in that graph.....

[BillT]

5 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

An important logical flaw in "the climate doesn't cause " arguments is that it seems the denier is too myopic and linear-dimensional in their cause-and-effect grasping.  Perhaps it's a mental capacity ... Or a moral one.  

"Climate" does not maintain an operational presence in the daily dynamical interactivity that takes place in the environment. There is a population ballast that cannot seem to make the next leap of reasoning.  

Climate used to simply be 100 day, 100 temps, sum(t)/n-terms = the temperature climate across that hundred days.  But here's the rub ... that numbers doesn't tell whether those temperatures are trending up, or down.  What climate is now, is a description of the tendency and it has to be. Because not only rising, that rise is no longer linear.. It's curved upward. IF the frequency of big anomalies in a system is increasing does concomitantly connote the probability of those events are an > tendencies, and MATCHES what is presently happening ( yet exceeds) it must therefore be statistical significant.

By and large - and this can be at time the writing of the scientist, sure - when one mentions the term climate in deference to wild fires, flood food or famine ...tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards and so forth... they are not saying the climate "caused" the event, they are saying:   

you in a climate that favors these things happening - more over ... a NEW one ( ding ding: what do we call that, class!?) 

 

"The climate science is settled on direct causal links to California wildfires.  "        that IS the claim made......and that claim is insane

 

[Typhoon Tip]

5 minutes ago, BillT said:

i see meaningless jibberish in that graph.....

Well... that's all I need to hear

[BillT]

Just now, Typhoon Tip said:

Well... that's all I need to hear

there is nothing there saying what that graph shows, then and now are not the parameters of a graph with any meaning.......

[Typhoon Tip]

5 minutes ago, BillT said:

"The climate science is settled on direct causal links to California wildfires.  "        that IS the claim made......and that claim is insane

 

why... they said the climate science is settled...  

what do you think that means

Look your a either a troll, simply put ( and not even a rankably clever one) or are just not even mentally capable of this discussion so best of luck

 

[BillT]

53 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Let me ask you something, when a given set of statistic that looks sorta like this  ... 

what do you see? 

i also see a graph with clearly whatever is being measured is leveling off in the near now time area but the line drawn shows the OPPOSITE is shows a sharper increase in whatever is being measured, the line drawn does NOT match the graph.

[donsutherland1]

2 hours ago, BillT said:

the "climate" is a set of statistics, it is not a force and claims it is causing fires in california this year are insane beyond belief......

The above reasoning is deeply flawed.

For example, assume a hypothetical scenario where one has prolonged exposure to a heat index of 110° and winds up suffering from a heat-related health issue. Drawn from the above reasoning, one would assert that the high heat index wasn't responsible (after all, the heat index is merely an equation) and, by extension, some other issue led to the person's health issues (rather than the combination of heat and relative humidity, as measured by the heat index). That's the argument being made to deny that climate change has any link to the California wildfires. The empirical evidence in numerous published papers demonstrates the existence of such a link.

Put simply, the measurements don't cause issues. But the underlying phenomena being measured or described--in this case, climate change--have very real consequences.