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Post by icefisher on Jun 13, 2014 3:32:18 GMT
Is the Arctic heading for a below average cold Summer? Ice extent currently within 1 standard deviation. That looks like the biggest negative anomaly in June ever. The June cliff this year might be the July cliff.
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Post by neilhamp on Jun 20, 2014 8:05:44 GMT
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Post by neilhamp on Jun 21, 2014 6:41:03 GMT
I see the median forecast from the sea-ice prediction network is 4.7 www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2014/juneHowever, we are using a different metric arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.htmlThe network median forecast is just over half way between 2012 and 2013 For our metric I take this to be about 2.9 - 3.0 The entries for our "competition" are shown below HRizzo 4.8 zaphod 4.3 throttlup 4.2 phydeaux 4.1 dontgetoutmuch 4.0 icefisher 3.9 Cutty Dyer 3.8 (2013 - 3.55) flearider 3.3 neilhamp 3.3 karlox 3.1 kenfeldman 2.7 sigurdur 2.5 (2012 - 2.33) birder 2.2 Al Gore 0.0 (In his 2007 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Al Gore predicted that the Arctic will be ice free in the summer of 2014)
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Post by Ratty on Jun 21, 2014 23:51:44 GMT
Where are the headlines?
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Post by sigurdur on Jun 22, 2014 0:54:04 GMT
Can't have those kinds of headlines.
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Post by cuttydyer on Jun 26, 2014 5:15:36 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Jun 26, 2014 13:18:46 GMT
Ayep, more fools.
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Post by dontgetoutmuch on Jun 26, 2014 18:08:27 GMT
Is it just me, or does the polar bear bait #1 look cold sailing in London in June!!!
In other news. If I was the genius doing the planning I would beware. When Alaska has a mild winter and a warm Spring followed by cool wet Summer, Fall is going to eat you alive!!!
After checking the planned route, I cannot believe they are seriously planning on having that dingy in the Bering Sea in September... Not a survival characteristic.
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Post by sigurdur on Jun 26, 2014 20:53:35 GMT
No it isn't. I don't think these folks really have a clue. This area is not the South Pacific.
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 1, 2014 3:32:27 GMT
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Post by cuttydyer on Jul 3, 2014 6:52:24 GMT
Blue Planet Odyssey update: both yachts (Aventura and Suilven) are now in Greenland. Extract from Suilven's log entry from the 2nd July 63:31.2N 051:51.9W "we were shocked to see that the sea temperature was a mere 1.5 degrees, and that was when we spotted our first iceberg, about a couple of miles away, a majestic mountain of ice, drifting between us and the coast. Another iceberg was spotted a few hours later, this time right on our bow, forcing us to alter course. We were clearly too far inshore, so decided to head out to sea again, partly to avoid yet another band of bad weather, but also to get out of the icy waters inshore." _________________________________ I don't fancy their chances, It's looking cold up there: Link: earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-339.45,91.71,1024
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Post by graywolf on Jul 3, 2014 17:12:07 GMT
Not looking good again for Sea ice? just had a million week drop and are currently 3rd lowest with some very unfavourable weather forecast. The results as to why last year stayed so high appear to point at low direct sunlight on the surface allowing for a rapid surface refreeze even with bottom melt still in progress? This year the oceans have seen a normal amount of sunlight so it further reinforces why we will not see a re-run.
The real question has to be how low it will go?
With so little transport so far this year ( and fram looking pretty empty) it looks to be all about melt within the basin? With such a battered pack we will get to find out how such ice condition copes with what looks to be another 'average' weather year?
With Beaufort ( thicker ice ,esp in the gyre) showing large losses over the past few days I have to wonder how much of that 'thick ice' there really is and how much was lead infill/mechanically weathered ice from floes.
The other issue has to be ESS and the open water there? with Dr S giving the skype interview on this winters research expedition over the submerged permafrost my thoughts have to turn to the faulted zones and long ftech swells impacting the deposits there? With so much open water there, for so long this year, the fist real weather over that side ( as forecast as the 2014 dipole sets in) may well produce the depth od wave action that will impact the shallow sea floor below. The other worry has to be the open water she discovered there in Jan . The locals had never known open water along the coast there and her findings of freezing temp sea waters ( and not the -7 she expected) illustrates what this means for the carbon reserves locked in below?
Apart from last year previous years have only seen the periphery of the pack heavily fragmented until aug. This year we have seen such conditions since mid June throughout large sections of the pack with Beaufort buoys showing bottom melt beginning 3 weeks earlier in some areas? Will the increased ration of surface area to ice mass mean floes amass heat far faster than they would as part of a large , contiguous floe?
Normally I look at the 100% ice on CT ,come aug 1st, to gain insight into final area. I do not think this will be of help this year? I did see research linking snow cover at the end of may as a guide to final ice levels , this year would then , by that measure , just pip 2007 record low though not challenge 2012? As I said before melt season the odds of seeing a repeat of 2013 were about the same as seeing a 2007 type synoptic with an 'average year' being most likely ( however this manifests across the season?) , this looks to be becoming the case with an average year so far with some regions holding onto cold but others showing large expanses of open water since May.
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Post by icefisher on Jul 4, 2014 9:03:15 GMT
Graywolf we are in general agreement that the general tendency of the arctic melting is not over with. For whatever reason NOAA models have continued to predict a poor melt this year and in fact has gotten more bullish on that over the past month. I have no idea on a season by season basis of what the melt will be and have noted very large natural variability from year to year. I picked a number pretty close to NOAA on a pretty marginal basis that the last melt produced what appeared to be a large negative feedback that took a couple of years to play out. But over all I tend to think the period of rapid melt should last 16 to 18 years in accordance with the period of recent ocean oscillations and on the basis of the astrology basis of natural variability which seems to be in one form or another a realist alternative to man made causes. Its a little difficult to pinpoint exactly when the rapid melt began but it appears from the above chart it could have been 1993 or 2002 or somewhere in between as double peaks seem somewhat common in natural systems. Of course if it were 1993 then melting should have began a turn around somewhere around 2009 to 2011. But if you use the later date of 2002 for the rapid melt commencement, the end should not come until 2018 to 2020. It seems likely to me that 9 year difference in potential rapid melt commencement dates might be part of the expected 18 year relatively stable ice conditions period seen at the top and bottom of the oscillations in a 70+ year cycle. I charted year round ice a while ago and it showed a leveling in the amount of annual average ice one can eyeball that in the above chart that currently shows a possible minimum straddling 2007 to 2012. 2012 to current looks a lot like the reversal of 2004 to 2006. But obviously its too soon to assume that true another big ice melt would extend the saddle and make the minimum come later. Since annual averages are a very popular means of looking at systems, at least when its favorable to do so, for the CAGW crew; it seems fair to look at that. One can also see in the chart a significant increase in interannual variability. That suggests an increased likelihood of an exceptional summer melt even during a period of slow recovery that would be the other 9 years of the 18 year long quarter cycle. We should know in a few years. I was first attracted to this topic via an article from a solar physicist who predicted a low solar cycle 24 back in 2006 about 3 years before it started. He noted in his paper that we should soon learn whether the modern warming was due to the sun or possibly manmade causes because for the first time in the late modern record both manmade emissions and solar activity was not both suggesting warming. Since the surface oceans take a minimum of 7 years and possibly 12 years for the surface ocean to warm thats the delay we should expect. If the sun is the cause we should see a minimum of annual average ice calculated as having occurred sometime between 2010 and 2020. I suspect that this 10 year period should have minimal change in ice levels also but that does not rule out a very low summer minimum as interannual variability may still be increasing. I personally feel ice effects timing wise is one of the most trailing indicators of warming. With potential forcing pointing in opposite directions and the system showing a definite shoulder shift in the direction of the sun, folks seeing religious figures in their sleep need to wake up and seeing what is going on in the real world and understand it a bit better. Its a fairly easy explanation for why average ice would go level while annual extremes would widen. Namely the melting of multi-year ice should increase interannual variability of the ice meaning that summer minimums really isn't a meaningful statistic as its really a form of feedback and not an indicator of primary forcing.
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 4, 2014 14:16:13 GMT
I get a kick out of the folks making a big deal out of the Arctic Ice. The reason I do is that during the early Holocene the Arctic did in fact, become ice free during the summer months. There have been numerous papers showing this.
During every interglacial of the past 4, most of Greenland has melted off, the Western P of Antarctica goes etc. This is normal behavior during an interglacial.
Dr. Keating answered my question as to what caused the early 20th Century warming. He stated it was a natural cycle. I asked him a cause, he didn't respond. And the reason he didn't is that no one knows the cause. Just as the late 20th century warm up could very well be natural.
Now, some will state that it has to be CO2, but that statement is really out of ignorance. Being we don't know the early cause, how can we exclude that unknown as the preponderance of the later cause.
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Post by sigurdur on Jul 4, 2014 14:17:57 GMT
And I would like to still see someone sail the route taken by the St Roch in 1944. Even during low ice extent, that route has remained blocked during the satellite period.
As far as the fools sailing today? A fool and his boat are soon parted. Normally not without some duress I might add.
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