February | 2018 | The Great White Con

As already mentioned in our February Arctic overview, another storm is brewing. Here is this morning’s weather forecast for Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard:

Much like last month, temperatures are above zero and rain is forecast. That’s because once again the current synoptic chart from Environment Canada shows a warm wet flow from way down south over Svalbard and on into the Central Arctic:

Next here’s the current combined wave and swell height forecast for the Svalbard area:

and here’s the associated wave period forecast:

It’s still showing 10 meter waves with a 15 second period north of Svalbard tomorrow lunchtime. Somewhat unusually for the Arctic these aren’t merely giant wind waves. Zooming in on the Fram Strait and breaking out the underlying primary swell reveals:

A long distance swell of that magnitude is going to cause some damage.

[Edit – February 5th]

The current ECMWF forecast for a split polar vortex, courtesy of Ice Shieldz on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

This is suggestive of more cyclones to come, but sticking with the current one for now, here is the MSLP chart at 00:00 UTC this morning showing the cyclone’s central pressure has dropped to 952 hPa:

Here too is the current WaveWatch III forecast for 15:00 UTC today:

The peak of the swell north of Svalbard is now slightly later than originally forecast, but it’s still enormous!

Here’s a single Sentinel 1B synthetic aperture radar image that captures the position of the ice edge north of Svalbard yesterday quite nicely:

[Edit – February 7th]

A brief overview of the effect of the recent cyclone on the sea ice in the Arctic via AMSR2:

Click the image to animate it.

[Edit – February 8th]

An Arctic wide take via Thomas Lavergne on Twitter:

Your daily update on the "big low entering #SeaIce". The "spin" in motion moves East towards Severnaya Zemlya. Some opening from land there, increased flushing through Fram Strait. pic.twitter.com/q4m1CRhmtS

— Thomas Lavergne (@lavergnetho) February 8, 2018

plus the latest AMSR2 concentration map:

[Edit – February 9th]

An interesting insight into CryoSat-2 sea ice thickness measurements from Stefan Hendricks on Twitter:

Radar altimetry tells you how far the surface waves penetrate into the #seaice cover. Unfortunetaly via a bias in #Cryosat freeboard information. 😉 pic.twitter.com/OxUTcFH94h

— Stefan Hendricks (@sthendric) February 9, 2018

Plus Judah Cohen on the split polar vortex:

GFS wants to keep major #PolarVortex (PV) center over Western Canada after the split and is consistent with predicted westward shift of troughing and #cold across North America but this is not typical following significant PV disruptions. pic.twitter.com/zX7n3rnMpo

— Judah Cohen (@judah47) February 9, 2018

Whilst the official PIOMAS volume figures for January have yet to be released Wipneus has worked his usual magic on the gridded thickness numbers to reveal:

not to mention the calculated volume:

and the volume anomaly:

As Wipneus puts it:

Estimated from the thickness data, the latest value is from 31st of January: 17.57 [1000 km3], which is the second lowest value for that day, 2017 is lowest by a rather large margin at 16.16 [1000 km3].

Here are the “measured” thickness maps from SMOS:

and CryoSat-2:

Here are the end of January Arctic wide high resolution AMSR2 graphs based on University of Hamburg data:

In addition, since it’s that time of year, here too is Wipneus’ NSIDC global sea ice extent:

The minimum thus far is very slightly above last year’s value, but perhaps like last year there will be a “double dip”?

Getting back to the Arctic, here is the DMI >80N temperature plot for January:

together with the associated freezing degree days graph:

Here’s a video showing the effect of the mid January cyclones on the sea ice in the Fram Strait and north of Svalbard:

Finally, for the moment at least, here is the current Fram Strait surf forecast for 12:00 UTC on February 5th:

Those maps shows 10 meter high, 15 second period waves heading straight for the ice edge north of Svalbard.

[Edit – February 7th]

The latest edition of Arctic Sea Ice News has been published. As the NSIDC put it:

January of 2018 began and ended with satellite-era record lows in Arctic sea ice extent, resulting in a new record low for the month. Combined with low ice extent in the Antarctic, global sea ice extent is also at a record low.

Air temperatures at the 925 hPa level (about 2,500 feet above sea level) remained unusually high over the Arctic Ocean. Nearly all of the region was at least 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) or more above average. The largest departures from average of more than 9 degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit) were over the Kara and Barents Seas, centered near Svalbard. On the Pacific side, air temperatures were about 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average. By contrast, 925 hPa temperatures over Siberia were up to 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) below average. The warmth over the Arctic Ocean appears to result partly from a pattern of atmospheric circulation bringing in southerly air, and partly from the release of heat into the atmosphere from open water areas.

[Edit – February 10th]

The University of Hamburg’s high resolution AMSR2 derived area is bouncing back after the recent cyclone, but extent is currently still declining:

The recent drop in Arctic sea ice extent has pushed the NSIDC global extent to a new all time (satellite era!) low:

The Great White Con

Putting the Arctic sea ice record straight

Monthly Archives: February 2018

The February 2018 Fram Strait Cyclones

Facts About the Arctic in February 2018