Arctic Sea Ice Extent, Area, and Volume

[roardog]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

But everyone on here said the ice would recover and/or we didn't have enough data to opine on the significance of the record ice loss. I said "no, the arctic is in a death spiral." I wonder who was right?

lol. I’m not sure there’s a single person on here that said that. 

[donsutherland1]

The final Arctic sea ice extent minimum this year on JAXA was 4.073 million square kilometers. That was the 6th lowest figure on record and lowest since 2020. Even more remarkable, this low figure occurred during a summer when conditions were unusually favorable for preserving Arctic sea ice extent. In the meantime, volume dropped to a record low.

[roardog]

On 8/28/2024 at 1:00 PM, donsutherland1 said:

 it appears that 2024 will become the fourth year to record a minimum figure under 4 million square kilometers. 2012, 2019, and 2020 are the other years with minimum figures below 4 million square kilometers.

It looks like it didn't make it below 4 million this year.

[donsutherland1]

17 minutes ago, roardog said:

It looks like it didn't make it below 4 million this year.

It just missed, as I posted above (4.073 million square kilometers, 6th lowest figure).

[ORH_wxman]

On 9/18/2024 at 2:22 PM, TheClimateChanger said:

But everyone on here said the ice would recover and/or we didn't have enough data to opine on the significance of the record ice loss. I said "no, the arctic is in a death spiral." I wonder who was right?

The empirical evidence would argue against a death spiral. We would’ve continued to get large declines and instead it’s basically been flat since the nadir 2010-2012 period. The evidence also argues against a rebuilding of multi-year ice to levels seen pre-2007. We seem to be more in a semi-stable period of sea ice the last decade-plus. I suspect we need to warm more in the winters in order to see more record lows consistently. (This is because winters are still cold enough to refreeze the first year ice into its max thickness of roughly 2m) Until that happens, we’d need a big time preconditioning weather pattern to get a new record. 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

16 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

The empirical evidence would argue against a death spiral. We would’ve continued to get large declines and instead it’s basically been flat since the nadir 2010-2012 period. The evidence also argues against a rebuilding of multi-year ice to levels seen pre-2007. We seem to be more in a semi-stable period of sea ice the last decade-plus. I suspect we need to warm more in the winters in order to see more record lows consistently. (This is because winters are still cold enough to refreeze the first year ice into its max thickness of roughly 2m) Until that happens, we’d need a big time preconditioning weather pattern to get a new record. 

This is spot on. We could see this continue for an another decade or more. Eventually we will cross another threshold (another 1-2c) we’re even winters aren’t cold enough to fully freeze the margins. Then it’s a slow decline to the eventual ice free Arctic. 

[Typhoon Tip]

On 9/21/2024 at 8:15 PM, ORH_wxman said:

The empirical evidence would argue against a death spiral. We would’ve continued to get large declines and instead it’s basically been flat since the nadir 2010-2012 period. The evidence also argues against a rebuilding of multi-year ice to levels seen pre-2007. We seem to be more in a semi-stable period of sea ice the last decade-plus. I suspect we need to warm more in the winters in order to see more record lows consistently. (This is because winters are still cold enough to refreeze the first year ice into its max thickness of roughly 2m) Until that happens, we’d need a big time preconditioning weather pattern to get a new record. 

just a brief op ed on this:

i suspect the recent pattern of behavior in the cc monitoring, related to sudden movements, might be more than just noise.  

the en masse wholesale atmospheric t surge last year, is a sudden movement into a new registry for example ( also experienced amid the oceanic ssts in all direction, everywhere, at once). 

as an aside, that cannot be explained by enso. i find it far more likely that enso was just happening to decay around the same time...  however, the global atm and sst warm burst took place prior to the change for several weeks. that doesn't fit.

the big nadir in ice on 2012 was also a reset regime change in my mind. 

i don't disagree that arctic sea ice has been something like stable since then ... tending to bounce around the basement isn't very comforting given the back ground.   but a 'spiraling' adjective isn't supported in the observations.

in any case, i'll be monitoring the d(recovery) rate now that the sun's set over the geographical n pole

[chubbs]

Arctic and Antarctic sea ice has had a bit of a see saw in recent decades, often moving in different directions.  The ocean overturning circulation is a potential link. Another factor to consider in evaluating Arctic and Antarctic sea ice trends.

[Typhoon Tip]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

Arctic and Antarctic sea ice has had a bit of a see saw in recent decades, often moving in different directions.  The ocean overturning circulation is a potential link. Another factor to consider in evaluating Arctic and Antarctic sea ice trends.

...

...

i read speculation somewhere years ago that the antarctic gain in that graph, lasting some 10 years between 2005 and 2015, was actually a complex feed-back from warming mid latitudes ( at first ) creating more gradient as it encroached upon the polar vortex.

that increased velocities, temporarily strengthening the circulation, and a rampart that stopped warm air intrusions from penetrating into the vortex interior - but as all this intuits, it would likely be transient.   sort of an initial response, so to speak. 

i haven't read/heard of any follow-up but the recency since 2015 with fairly obvious declination along that curve might fit that idea. 

[chubbs]

20 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

i read speculation somewhere years ago that the antarctic gain in that graph, lasting some 10 years between 2005 and 2015, was actually a complex feed-back from warming mid latitudes ( at first ) creating more gradient as it encroached upon the polar vortex.

that increased velocities, temporarily strengthening the circulation, and a rampart that stopped warm air intrusions from penetrating into the vortex interior - but as all this intuits, it would likely be transient.   sort of an initial response, so to speak. 

i haven't read/heard of any follow-up but the recency since 2015 with fairly obvious declination along that curve might fit that idea. 

Yes, increasing winds played a role in antarctic sea ice gains up to 2015. Haven't seen anything on recent wind impacts or whether changing winds or temperature are driving recent decline.

[bdgwx]

The DMI plot of volume has been updated to include September 2024. 

[bluewave]

On 7/1/2024 at 3:35 PM, bluewave said:

Looks like the 2012 record low extent could be safe for another year. Latest CPOM UCL forecast for September average extent is around 4.1 million sq km. This forecast has been close every year over the last decade. It’s a statistical model based on May melt ponding. While their full forecast discussion isn’t available yet in the link, they probably observed the melt ponding back in May to be less extensive than 2020 and 2012. 

2024…..4.10…Forecast…Verification 4.38 

2023…..4.37

2022….4.87

2021……4.92

2020……3.92…2nd lowest

2019……4.32

2018…...4.71

2017……4.87

2016……4.72

2015…..4.63

2014…..5.28

2013…..5.35

2012…..3.60….lowest

2011……4.61

2010…..4.90

2009….5.36

2008….4.67

2007…..4.28

 

https://www.arcus.org/files/sio/main/June_2024_SIO_Report_Corrected.pdf

 

 

Another great job from the model. 

https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/analyses/new-abnormal

Average Arctic sea ice extent for the month of September was 4.38 million square kilometers (1.69 million square miles), sixth lowest in the 46-year-satellite passive microwave record 

[TheClimateChanger]

On 9/18/2024 at 4:18 PM, roardog said:

lol. I’m not sure there’s a single person on here that said that. 

Ok, sure. @tacoman25 or whatever he used to call himself. The deceased @nzucker. Even some very respected "moderate voices" never said that. Sure, I'm making it all up.

[roardog]

8 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Ok, sure. @tacoman25 or whatever he used to call himself. The deceased @nzucker. Even some very respected "moderate voices" never said that. Sure, I'm making it all up.

I wasn’t talking about what someone said years ago. Nzucker hasn’t been alive for a few years now and I don’t think Raindance has posted in this thread in several years either. 

[forkyfork]

i guess this is why nobody is posting about the freeze up

[TheClimateChanger]

22 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

i guess this is why nobody is posting about the freeze up

Interesting. Was 2012 still the lowest on record on October 18 [I know it was the all-time minimum]?

[donsutherland1]

55 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Interesting. Was 2012 still the lowest on record on October 18 [I know it was the all-time minimum]?

October 18 data isn't in. For October 17th, 2024 ranked 3rd lowest (5.534 million square kilometers). Only 2020 (4.959 million square kilometers) and 2019 (5.226 million square kilometers ranked lower). 2012 had extent of 5.804 million square kilometers. All of these figures are from JAXA.

[bluewave]

Looks like the warmest October on record north of 80N.

https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

 

[chubbs]

On 10/31/2024 at 2:57 PM, bluewave said:

Looks like the warmest October on record north of 80N.

https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

 

Consistent with the warm October temps above 80N, sea ice volume growth was slow in October and 2024 fell to 2nd lowest volume as of Oct 31. Only 2020 was lower.

[bluewave]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

Consistent with the warm October temps above 80N, sea ice volume growth was slow in October and 2024 fell to 2nd lowest volume as of Oct 31. Only 2020 was lower.

Seems to be closing the gap a bit between the DMI volume. But the DMI is still lower. The October temperatures above 80N were warmest on record by a wide margin.

 

[Typhoon Tip]

5 hours ago, bluewave said:

Seems to be closing the gap a bit between the DMI volume. But the DMI is still lower. The October temperatures above 80N were warmest on record by a wide margin.

 

sometimes i feel like there needs to be an Isaac Cline of climate monitoring ...

if anyone's ever read the time's best seller, isaac's storm ( which i have ...fantastic accounting ) about the galveston bay disaster in 1900.  with terrific descriptive prose brought to imagination and emotion, the cultural life and times of the era, and the lacking real understanding of hurricanes. he describes the indifference of the civlity as the hours neared to their doom.  

isaac cline was an employee of the then 'weather bureau' ...  he took to galloping horseback, frantically screaming up and down the bay side causeway that connected barrier islands, and throughout the town itself ... warning of the impending disaster.  flee. flee.

we've known for some time that the polar domains are warming some 3x's faster than regions below the 70th parallels, anyway - during this 'hockey stick' acceleration of global warming that has occurred over the last 2 to 3 decades.   what if ...this was all prelude to a geological event, one no one thought or even imagined could take place: the whole of the domain surging past some perilous threshold all at once...   good sci fi if nothing else.

kind of like cline's 'the british are coming! the british are coming!'  style campaign would be useful here... back whence, the largely non-suspecting "ignorami" were incredulous to his alerts.   didn't end well for civility.

 

[so_whats_happening]

Third lowest sea ice volume for September 1979- Present only slight less than 2019 and slightly more than 2020 and well just not even close, yet, to 2012.

https://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/PIOMAS.2sst.monthly.Current.v2.1.txt

[Typhoon Tip]

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-countdown-ice-free-arctic-timelines.html

not a huge fan of the article's style of delivery and content presentation but ... the result is the result. 

i just find it something how the evidences of acceleration keep emerging.  just 10 years ago the narrative was 'within the next 100 years' and yet again, here we see another example of how this climate change impact occurring sooner rather than later.

[bluewave]

Record marine heatwave this summer into fall on Hudson Bay and delayed freeze up contributing to a new Arctic sea ice low extent for December 12th.

https://sites.google.com/view/arctic-sea-ice/home/nsidc-arctic

https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/analyses/sluggish-freeze-warming-north

 

This past summer saw an unusually early ice retreat in eastern and southern Hudson Bay. When the ice retreats early, there is more time for the ocean to absorb solar energy that otherwise would be reflected by the brighter, white sea ice. Since the sea ice had already broken up in southeastern Hudson Bay by May, ocean temperatures started to rise early, with much of southeastern Hudson Bay experiencing marine heat waves, especially in June, July, and October. A marine heat wave occurs when the sea surface temperature exceeds the ninetieth percentile for that time of year for at least five consecutive days. Between June and October, this part of Hudson Bay had experienced more than 60 percent of days with a marine heat wave—a new record. Marine heat waves can have major ecological implications, contributing to declines in species like eelgrass (Zostera marina), which play important roles in the region’s coastal and estuarine ecosystems.

Since the ocean heat gained during summer must be released to the atmosphere ice before sea ice can form, the excess ocean heat is likely to delay the freeze up. This lengthens the ice-free period, with adverse consequences to the local polar bear populations as they will have to fast for a longer period. Polar bears prefer to feed by waiting on sea ice for seals to appear at breathing holes. They eat very little—basically fasting—while remaining on land in the ice-free season. A longer ice-free season means they must fast for longer. This is a concern for the southern Hudson Bay polar bear populations. Using the date of ice retreat together with the current ocean heat content, it is estimated that new ice formation may not occur until mid-December this year, which would extend the ice-free period, and hence the fasting period, to more than 190 days.

 

 

[chubbs]

4 hours ago, bluewave said:

Record marine heatwave this summer into fall on Hudson Bay and delayed freeze up contributing to a new Arctic sea ice low extent for December 12th.

https://sites.google.com/view/arctic-sea-ice/home/nsidc-arctic

https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/analyses/sluggish-freeze-warming-north

 

This past summer saw an unusually early ice retreat in eastern and southern Hudson Bay. When the ice retreats early, there is more time for the ocean to absorb solar energy that otherwise would be reflected by the brighter, white sea ice. Since the sea ice had already broken up in southeastern Hudson Bay by May, ocean temperatures started to rise early, with much of southeastern Hudson Bay experiencing marine heat waves, especially in June, July, and October. A marine heat wave occurs when the sea surface temperature exceeds the ninetieth percentile for that time of year for at least five consecutive days. Between June and October, this part of Hudson Bay had experienced more than 60 percent of days with a marine heat wave—a new record. Marine heat waves can have major ecological implications, contributing to declines in species like eelgrass (Zostera marina), which play important roles in the region’s coastal and estuarine ecosystems.

Since the ocean heat gained during summer must be released to the atmosphere ice before sea ice can form, the excess ocean heat is likely to delay the freeze up. This lengthens the ice-free period, with adverse consequences to the local polar bear populations as they will have to fast for a longer period. Polar bears prefer to feed by waiting on sea ice for seals to appear at breathing holes. They eat very little—basically fasting—while remaining on land in the ice-free season. A longer ice-free season means they must fast for longer. This is a concern for the southern Hudson Bay polar bear populations. Using the date of ice retreat together with the current ocean heat content, it is estimated that new ice formation may not occur until mid-December this year, which would extend the ice-free period, and hence the fasting period, to more than 190 days.

 

 

Wondering how the open Hudson Bay impacts our winter weather with a prominent Hudson's Bay vortex expected this winter

[bluewave]

34 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Wondering how the open Hudson Bay impacts our winter weather with a prominent Hudson's Bay vortex expected this winter

Along with the record warm water temperatures in the Great Lakes, it has had a moderating influence on the cold in the Northeast. 

 

[chubbs]

On 12/13/2024 at 4:27 PM, bluewave said:

Along with the record warm water temperatures in the Great Lakes, it has had a moderating influence on the cold in the Northeast. 

 

I am also wondering about the impact on the Hudson's Bay vortex itself. An open Hudson's Bay could make it more difficult to maintain a strong vortex near the Bay. Doubt the TNH analogs have an open Hudson's Bay in mid-Dec.

[GaWx]

4 hours ago, chubbs said:

I am also wondering about the impact on the Hudson's Bay vortex itself. An open Hudson's Bay could make it more difficult to maintain a strong vortex near the Bay. Doubt the TNH analogs have an open Hudson's Bay in mid-Dec.

Charlie, doesn’t a weaker PV usually mean overall colder for the middle latitudes since the cold wouldn't be as locked up in the more N latitudes?

[chubbs]

25 minutes ago, GaWx said:

Charlie, doesn’t a weaker PV usually mean overall colder for the middle latitudes since the cold wouldn't be as locked up in the more N latitudes?

Yes weaker is better when the PV is in the arctic, but Hudson's Bay is a different situation. In that case, stronger can help lock in the TNH+ pattern (per Webber) and provide a nearby cold air source. That said, Webber wasn't concerned about it on another forum.

[bluewave]

Daily record lows continuing by a pretty wide margin.

https://bsky.app/profile/climatecasino.net/post/3ldito5gmj22w

Day #7 of setting a record daily low for Arctic sea-ice extent. Dec. 16, 2024: 435,000 km² below the previous daily record.

 

December 17, 2024 at 7:26 A