2016 Arctic Sea Ice Thread

[BenBurch]

As in prior years, this is a thread on Arctic Sea Ice for tracking sea ice over the course of the 2015 melt season.

This thread is approved by the moderator team for the limited purposes described, anything more than incidentally beyond that may be subject to moderator action.

Rule;

1. This is not an AGW thread.
2. This is about Sea Ice only.
3. You may speculate on the trajectory of Sea Ice melting in here.
4. You may post data from official sources and news articles from the science press in this thread.
5. No politics.
6. See rule 5.

Now, to start us off let us discuss the three measures of Sea Ice that are often misunderstood;

Sea Ice Extent; This is the total area of sea that is at least 15% ice-covered, so this can include a lot of open water, no open water, or anything in between. This is an easy measurement to make, and is useful for navigation; unless you are an icebreaker you do not want to sail into an area that is 15% ice. However, this is a very misleading measurement at times when you want to ascertain how much ice has melted.

Sea Ice Area; This is a better measurement in that it considers just the area taken up by ice. If 1 km2 is 20% ice-covered, that is .2 km2 area. So though this measurement CAN track Extent fairly closely, there is no guarantee it will, and it can diverge markedly under the right conditions. However, this tells you nothing about the thickness of the ice; It can be 1 cm thick, or 3 m thick and it is all the same in this measure, what counts is the area it covers. This measurement is a good way to judge the amount of sunlight rejected to space by white ice as opposed to dark water.

Sea Ice Volume; This is the actual physical volume of ice in polar waters. It is probably the best measure of how far the loss of polar ice has progressed.

Anomaly plots; When you compare the ice that on average would have been found on a particular date or range of dates, in any of the above measures, and subtract that from the number you measure, you get the first derivative of the that measure, and you can see how much ahead or behind the average you are. This is very useful as it is difficult to look at the sinusoidal annual cycle these numbers go through, and get a sense of comparison between two cycles. This removes the annual signal and just shows you how it had been modulated.

Ratios of multi-year ice to single-season ice at the*start of the melt season; Multi-year ice is generally thicker and more durable than single-year ice. New ice is more saline and so melts at a lower temperature than does multi-year ice. A season that begins with a large inventory of new ice is more prone to the effects of temperature anomalies and can under identical conditions produce a lower ice minimum.

 

[BenBurch]

Current conditions;

As of right now we have not as yet reached the Arctic Sea Ice maximum for this season. That can be expected in about a month. Extent is tracking the -2 Std Dev line closely at this point in time.

 

[Warmer1]

Arctic Sea Ice Status: Crappy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorQwoIL0W8

Arctic ice gone by 2020?

2:18 Once the ice gets thin it could get pushed out of the Arctic

 

[Warmer1]

"Unusually warm Arctic winter stuns scientists with record low ice extent for January"

http://mashable.com/2016/02/05/arctic-sea-ice-hits-record-low-for-january/#X61XSXfoEiqc

"Nothing is as it should be for this time of year across a wide swath of the Arctic. Alaska has had not yet had a winter, with record warmth enveloping much of the state along with anemic snow depth."

“For the Arctic this is definitely the strangest winter I’ve ever seen," said Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)

"Fairbanks, Alaska, which set a record for the lowest amount of snow between Dec. 1 and Jan. 31 since records began there in 1915.......
Fairbanks had just 1.8 inches of snow during the period, which was more than 20 inches below average"

[for sea ice]
"For perspective, that departure from average is equivalent to missing a region of ice the size of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Maryland and New Hampshire combined."

 

[BenBurch]

Arctic Sea Ice Status: Crappy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorQwoIL0W8

Arctic ice gone by 2020?

2:18 Once the ice gets thin it could get pushed out of the Arctic

Indeed we have seen massive movement of ice in to the Fram Strait in past years.

 

[macdoc]

I would speculate there is a direct link in solar output and ice area changes

you'd be wrong

while not the only thing influencing the ice
it must be easy to track

It is ..and you are spectacularly wrong.

The bottom line is solar irradiance

so the irradiance is reducing somewhat....while the Arctic ice cover has been plunging..

So you can dump that notion of the sun controlling Arctic ice in the trash...with the exception of albedo changes. Less ice, more absorption, less reflection, warmer water.
There is a fresh water aspect to this as well

If you need help with ice cover versus ice volume, multi-year ice versus single year ice .. just ask.

 

[bobdroege7]

Is this where we make predictions for the 2016 minimum?

Here goes

Arctic sea ice area by Cryosphere Today- 2 million +/- 250,000

Arctic sea ice extent by JAXA- 3.5 million +/- 250,000

Time for record lows by the SWAG method

 

[lomiller]

But I think along the same lines as Lomiller, it won't make a difference in this years sea ice trajectory.

The energy flux delta just isn’t higher enough to melt ice sheets or warm oceans on a decadal scale let alone a yearly scale.

 

[George 152]

When theres no more use for Icebreakers in the high north and the NW Passage is crowded with shipping you'll have a point

 

[nota]

and I still want a better standard then 15%= 100%
as a measure of ice extent

 

[lomiller]

and I still want a better standard then 15%= 100%
as a measure of ice extent

I have no idea what you are trying to say

 

[fishbob]

2 data points:

1 Open water near the shoreline in Barrow Alaska in January. Very rare.

2 480 feet of shoreline loss over the last 3 years at our job site 85 miles east of Barrow. 50 feet in a single day during one storm event. 0pen water at the site from mid-July to mid-October.

 

[kmortis]

The posts discussing topics more in line with the general AGW thread have been moved there. Please keep this thread to the discussion of polar ice.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: kmortis

 

[nota]

I have no idea what you are trying to say

did you read the opening post ?

''Sea Ice Extent; This is the total area of sea that is at least 15% ice-covered, so this can include a lot of open water, no open water, or anything in between. This is an easy measurement to make, and is useful for navigation; unless you are an icebreaker you do not want to sail into an area that is 15% ice. However, this is a very misleading measurement at times when you want to ascertain how much ice has melted.''

but this is the most used ice count in most charts

btw censorship is always wrong

 

[CapelDodger]

The advantage of sea-ice extent is that it's easy to measure consistently with good precision. Sea-ice area and volume measures are also available but are necessarily estimates and less consistent across research groups. It would be great to know both accurately but one has to work with what one has.

 

[macdoc]

btw censorship is always wrong

not always wrong ..for sure wrong is
a) off topic posts on OP specified thread
b) not knowing what you are talking about in a science forum.

••••

Fortunately not all the assessments are satellite based.
An expedition a couple years back found that much of the "ice cover" was barely more than slush.

http://gizmodo.com/nasas-incredible-expedition-to-explore-the-arctic-ice-s-1718456021

and now Arctic watersheds are playing an increasing role in influencing ice cover

“River discharge is a key factor contributing to the high sensitivity of Arctic sea ice to climate change,” said Nghiem. “We found that rivers are effective conveyers of heat across immense watersheds in the Northern Hemisphere. These watersheds undergo continental warming in summertime, unleashing an enormous amount of energy into the Arctic Ocean, and enhancing sea ice melt. You don’t have this in Antarctica.”
The team said the impacts of these warm river waters are increasing due to three factors.

First, the overall volume of water discharged from rivers into the Arctic Ocean has increased.

Second, rivers are getting warmer as their watersheds (drainage basins) heat up.

And third, Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and more fragmented, making it more vulnerable to rapid melt.

In addition, as river heating contributes to earlier and greater loss of the Arctic’s reflective sea ice cover in summer, the amount of solar heat absorbed into the ocean increases, causing even more sea ice to melt.

To demonstrate the extensive intrusion of warm Arctic river waters onto the Arctic sea surface, the team selected the Mackenzie River in western Canada. They chose the summer of 2012 because that year holds the record for the smallest total extent of sea ice measured across the Arctic in the more than 30 years that satellites have been making observations.
The researchers used data from satellite microwave sensors to examine the extent of sea ice in the study area from 1979 to 2012 and compared it to reports of Mackenzie River discharge. “Within this period, we found the record largest extent of open water in the Beaufort Sea occurred in 1998, which corresponds to the year of record high discharge from the river,” noted co-author Ignatius Rigor of the University of Washington in Seattle.

more
https://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/arctic-sea-ice-melt-20140305/#.VsGAQfiOpZ8

On May 12, 2015, a temperature of 80.1°F (or 26.7°C) was recorded in the north of Canada, at a location just north of latitude 63°N.
High temperatures in such locations are very worrying, for a number of reasons, including:
They are examples of heatwaves that can increasingly extend far to the north, all the way into the Arctic Ocean, speeding up warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed and threatening to unleash huge methane eruptions.
They set the scene for wildfires that emit not only greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, but also pollutants such as carbon monoxide (that depletes hydroxyl that could otherwise break down methane) and black carbon (that when settling on ice causes it to absorb more sunlight).
They cause warming of the water of rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean, thus resulting in additional sea ice decline and warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed.

The image below shows increased sea surface temperature anomalies in the area of the Beaufort Sea where the Mackenzie River is flowing into the Arctic Ocean.

more
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/mackenzie-river-warming.html

 

[BenBurch]

As of today sea ice extent is in unexplored territory. It has actually declined slightly over the last few days...

 

[sphenisc]

As of today sea ice extent is in unexplored territory. It has actually declined slightly over the last few days...

Also, it has also consistently remained below 2012 levels since the beginning of the year.

 

[bobdroege7]

Sea ice area is also in record low territory

 

[Jules Galen]

Sea ice area is also in record low territory

Yes it is! Once again, I am starting to believe that my dream of establishing the first Banana Plantation on the shores of the Arctic Ocean may become a reality. Along those lines, I have been researching government programs that would fund school job programs that would teach the local Innuit Populations to speak Spanish and how to pick Bananas. (I figure if the Innuit are to be hired to pick Bananas, then they should at least speak the same language of the Guatamalen Task Masters whom I will put in charge of them).

As far as the Polar Bear goes....well, that's just going to be tough luck for the Polar Bear in the Northern hemisphere. Perhaps we could ship a few bears to Anarctica and let them hang with the Penguins.

As far as the Caribou are concerned: screw 'em. Caribou are ugly and I don't care if they overheat and die. Same goes for the Musk Ox.

Also, now that the Ice is dissapearing from the Arctic Ocean, I think we should drill the hell out of it. There's got to be a lot of oil down there and because the area is so remote, we really don't have to be too careful about the environment.