The 2023 Arctic Report Card

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The 2023 Arctic Report Card has been published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All sorts of things are discussed in the report, but sticking to Snow White’s speciality of sea ice here’s an extract:

This satellite record tracks long-term trends, variability, and seasonal changes from the annual extent maximum in late February or March and the annual extent minimum in September. Extents in recent years are ~50% lower than values in the 1980s. In 2023, March and September extents were lower than other recent years, and though not a new record low, they continue the long-term downward trends:

March 2023 was marked by low sea ice extent around most of the perimeter of the sea ice edge, with the exception of the East Greenland Sea where extent was near normal. At the beginning of the melt season, ice retreat was initially fairly slow through April. In May and June, retreat increased to a near-average rate, and then accelerated further through July and August. By mid-July, the ice had retreated from much of the Alaskan and eastern Siberian coast and Hudson Bay had nearly melted out completely. In August, sea ice retreat was particularly pronounced on the Pacific side, opening up vast areas of the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas. Summer extent remained closer to average on the Atlantic side, in the Laptev, Kara, and Barents Seas

The Northern Sea Route, along the northern Russian coast, was relatively slow to open as sea ice extended to the coast in the eastern Kara Sea and the East Siberian Sea, but by late August, open water was found along the coast through the entire route. The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago became relatively clear of ice, though ice continued to largely block the western end of the northern route through M’Clure Strait through the melt season. Nonetheless, summer 2023 extent in the Passage was among the lowest observed in the satellite record, based on Canadian Ice Service ice charts.

Tracking the motion of ice in passive microwave imagery using feature tracking algorithms can be used to infer sea ice age. Age is a proxy for ice thickness because multiyear ice generally grows thicker through successive winter periods. Multiyear ice extent has shown interannual oscillations but no clear trend since 2007, reflecting variability in the summer sea ice melt and export out of the Arctic. After a year when substantial multiyear ice is lost, a much larger area of first-year ice generally takes its place. Some of this first-year ice can persist through the following summer, contributing to the replenishment of the multiyear ice extent:

However, old ice (here defined as >4 years old) has remained consistently low since 2012. Thus, unlike in earlier decades, multiyear ice does not remain in the Arctic for many years. At the end of the summer 2023 melt season, multiyear ice extent was similar to 2022 values, far below multiyear extents in the 1980s and 1990s:

Estimates of sea ice thickness from satellite altimetry can be used to more directly track this important metric of sea ice conditions, although the data record is shorter than for extent and ice age. Data from ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2/SMOS satellite products tracking the seasonal October to April winter ice growth over the past four years (when all missions have been in operation) show a mean thickness generally thinner than the 2021/22 winter but with seasonal growth typical of recent winters:

April 2023 thickness from CryoSat-2/SMOS relative to the 2011-22 April mean shows that the eastern Beaufort Sea and the East Siberian Sea had relatively thinner sea ice than the 2011-22 mean, particularly near the Canadian Archipelago. Thickness was higher than average in much of the Laptev and Kara Seas and along the west and northwest coast of Alaska, extending northward toward the pole. The East Greenland Sea had a mixture of thicker and thinner than average ice:

An excellent analysis (IMHO!), but I do have one quibble. I was following events in the Northwest Passage very closely last summer, and according to the Canadian Ice Service on September 1st:

Tony Heller Denies Global Warming

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Apart from (presumably accidentally) empirically confirming global warming and Arctic sea ice volume decline, Tony Heller has also been frantically attempting to persuade his flock of faithful followers that the current value of the OSI SAF’s extent metric means that the impending series of “2023 has been the hottest year evah!” stories are all lies.

Here a few examples of his infamous oeuvre, together with “Snow White’s” responses:

Tony has also gleefully invoked the NSIDC’s annual minimum extent for his nefarious purposes, although he refers to it as “NOAA data”:

Switching swiftly to a cherry picked graph of the OSI SAF minimum extent, Tony invokes the spirit of a deceased parrot that went to meet its maker several decades ago. He remains blissfully unaware that I watched the Monty Python dead parrot sketch when it was first broadcast:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1741519999963935159

When do you suppose Tony will get around to implementing my suggestion of revealing the OSI SAF extent graph for December 8th to his flock of faithful followers?

Or a multi decade graph of NSIDC extent for that matter?

[Update – January 4th]

My prediction has come true in next to no time:

[Update – January 20th]

For some strange reason Tony has been silent about Arctic sea ice extent for a while, and has moved on to the Greenland ice sheet instead:

Presumably that’s in response to an article in The Guardian:

The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought…

The study, published in the journal Nature, used artificial intelligence techniques to map more than 235,000 glacier end positions over the 38-year period, at a resolution of 120 metres. This showed the Greenland ice sheet had lost an area of about 5,000 sq km of ice at its margins since 1985, equivalent to a trillion tonnes of ice.


“Snow White” felt compelled to respond to Mr. Heller as follows:

“Snow” is now going to see if “she” can bring the latest “Shock News” from the Arctic Ocean to Tony’s attention. Wish “her” luck!

According to Tony’s current favourite metric, Arctic sea ice extent has reduced for 2 days in a row, and has reached the 10% percentile.

[Update – January 21st]

Tony has just pulled another one of his ageing rabbits out of his X rated climate scam hat:


“Snow White” responded with one of her own ageing replies:

Evidently Tony has still not learned that it’s impossible to compare 1990 apples with 2001 oranges, despite having the difference explained to him on numerous previous occasions.

Stop Press! Tony has suddenly discovered that he’s been comparing apples with oranges all these years!!

Of course he blames the IPCC rather than himself:

“Snow White’s” first thought?

Watch this space!

Facts About the Arctic in January 2024

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Happy New Year to one and all.

Whilst waiting for the all important thickness and volume data to arrive, we’ll start the new year in traditional fashion with a graph of JAXA extent:

The 2023 calendar year finished with this particular extent metric sitting at 15th lowest in the satellite era.

From Niall Dollard on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum comes evidence via the Sentinel 1A satellite that an arch formed in the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island in late December:

Since it’s a hot topic on (a)social media at the moment, here too is the Northern Hemisphere Multisensor Snow Extent at the end of 2023:

Please note the current record low NH snow extent. Matt predicts all that is about to change:

[Update – January 2nd]

Hot off the Scandinavian virtual printing presses, here is the official December Arctic sea ice extent trend graph from the OSI SAF:

That’s “Steve”/Tony’s current metric du jour. When do you suppose he will bring it to the attention of his horde of regular readers? It’s accompanied by this matching concentration map:

Here too is the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map for December 31st, in a different format to the one usually used here:

[Update – January 3rd]

The December PIOMAS modelled gridded thickness data has been released. The calculated volume is 6th lowest in the satellite era:

Here is the equivalent CS2/SMOS volume graph

Here too is the PIOMAS thickness map for December 31st:

This uses the same Greenland down orientation and 2.5 meter maximum scale value as the CS2/SMOS map above.

[Update – January 6th]

Here are the NSIDC area numbers from Gerontocrat on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum that Tom mentions below:

Currently 9th lowest for the date. In the satellite era!

[Update – January 8th]

The National Snow and Ice Data Center has published the December edition of Arctic Sea Ice News:

The end of 2023 had above average sea ice growth, bringing the daily extent within the interdecile range, the range spanning 90 percent of past sea ice extents for the date. Rapid expansion of ice in the Chukchi and Bering Seas and across Hudson Bay was responsible.

Average Arctic sea ice extent for December 2023 was 12.00 million square kilometers, ninth lowest in the 45-year satellite record . Sea ice extent increased by an average of 87,400 square kilometers per day, markedly faster than the 1981 to 2010 average of 64,100 square kilometers per day.

After a delayed start to the freeze-up in Hudson Bay, sea ice formed quickly from west to east across the bay, leaving only a small area of open ocean near the Belcher Islands at month’s end. In the northern Atlantic, sea ice extent remained below average extent, as has been typical for the past decade.

For December overall, 2023 had the third highest monthly gain in the 45-year record at 2.71 million square kilometers, behind 2006 at 2.85 million square kilometers and 2016 at 2.78 million square kilometers.

Moving on to the “Conditions in context” section:

Warm conditions prevailed over the central Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea regions, as well as over Hudson Bay and much of northern Canada, with air temperatures at the 925 millibar level (around 2,500 feet above sea level) 8 to 9 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average. Elsewhere, relatively cool conditions prevailed, with air temperatures 2 to 4 degrees Celsius below average in southwestern Alaska, easternmost Russia, Scandinavia, and southeast Greenland. Cool conditions in the Bering and southern Chukchi Seas explain the rapid ice growth there. By contrast, the warm conditions over Hudson Bay, continuing since November, explain its delayed start of ice formation there.

The atmospheric circulation pattern for December was marked by low sea level pressure over the Gulf of Alaska and northern Europe and high sea level pressure over central Russia. This pattern led to cold Arctic air flowing across the Chukchi Sea and into the Bering Sea as well as advection of relatively warm air across Canada into the Beaufort Sea:

[Update – January 10th]

NOAA have published the 2023 Arctic Report Card.

Here’s a taste, but there’s much more at the dedicated article linked to above:

[Update – January 12th]

A change is as good as a rest, so here’s the AWI “high resolution” AMSR2 Arctic wide sea ice extent graph

It’s currently highest for the date in the AMSR2 era by a significant margin.

Here too is the ice age map for the end of 2023:

[Update – January 19th]

Something seems to have gone wrong with the processing of the mid-month PIOMAS gridded thickness data. For the moment we’ll have to make do with just the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map:

and volume graph:

With the perennial caveat of a probable upward revision when the reanalysed data is released, Arctic sea ice volume is still close to the bottom of the range during the CryoSat-2 era.

In addition especially for Matt, “Steve”/Tony and numerous others of a “skeptical” persuasion, here are the latest Environment & Climate Change Canada snow extent and snow water equivalent graphs for the northern hemisphere:

Last but certainly not least is the Rutgers Global Snow Lab northern hemisphere snow cover anomaly chart for December:

[Update – January 29th]

A winter cyclone is stirring up the far North Atlantic. It’s currently forecast to bottom out later today with a minimum MSLP of 937 hPa:

The storm has been creating a long period swell directed at the ice edge in the Barents Sea. By midnight that swell will be battering the ice in the Fram Strait too:

[Update – January 30th]

According to Environment Canada the cyclone bottomed out with an MSLP of 939 hPa at 12 PM UTC yesterday:

Associated with the storm is a pulse of abnormally warm air reaching to the North Pole and beyond:

Here’s how JAXA extent looks as the big swell arrives:

And here’s the lead enhanced AWI AMSR2 concentration map of the Atlantic periphery:

Let’s see how things change over the next few days.

[Update – January 31st]

Here’s a preliminary look at the effect of the recent Arctic cyclone and other “weather” on the sea ice in the Fram Strait and Barents & Kara Seas:

There is also another cyclone heading for the Barents Sea. This one is forecast to bottom out at 936 hPa at around midnight tonight near the Norwegian coast:

P.S. The cyclone mentioned just above has been named Storm Ingunn by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute:

A yellow warning for wind has been issued for Scotland, and a red warning for Norway:

The conversation continues over on the February open thread.

Tony Heller Confirms Global Warming!

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As the New Year rapidly approaches Tony Heller is up to his old Arctic tricks yet again. No doubt we’ll get on to many of his hoary old chestnuts in due course, but although I may easily have blinked and missed it he appears to have a new trick up his voluminous sleeve. Providing empirical evidence that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s global warming “predictions” are correct!

Here is a recent extract from “Snow White’s” XTwitter feed:

By way of further elucidation, here is an extract from the IPCC’s Technical Summary of their AR6 Working Group 1 report:

Continue reading Tony Heller Confirms Global Warming! →

Facts About the Arctic in December 2023

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Christmas is rapidly approaching, and Santa and Snow White send festive greetings to one and all from the North Pole:

JAXA extent currently seems to be stuck on December 17th, but here’s how it looked a couple of days ago:

Having been comfortably in 3rd lowest position in the satellite era a few days ago, AMSR2 extent is now 5th lowest and very close to the 2010s average for the date.

The Alfred Wegener Institute have been releasing reanalysed CryoSat-2/SMOS merged thickness data for a few days, and here is the resulting Arctic sea ice volume chart:

Near real time volume is currently lowest for the date in the CS2 record, but is likely to be revised upwards when the reanalysed data is eventually released. The associated NRT thickness map looks like this for December 15th:

The mid-month PIOMAS modelled gridded thickness data has also been released. The calculated volume is 5th lowest in the satellite era:

Here too is the PIOMAS thickness map for December 15th:

[Update – December 24th]

Merry Xmas everyone, especially Matt! Here’s a couple of images from the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s latest edition of Arctic Sea Ice News. In the short term sea ice is always melting somewhere:

From November 21 to 28, a series of three extratropical cyclones followed a common track from the northeast coast of Greenland eastward along the northern edge of the Barents, Kara, and Laptev Seas. As each storm moved into the Arctic Ocean, it merged with its predecessors, creating a persistent cyclonic (counter clockwise) wind regime. The first and third of these storms originated in the Icelandic Low region before migrating up the east side of Greenland. The second storm originated just north of Greenland. Simultaneously, a center of high pressure developed over the ice-free part of the Barents Sea, becoming especially strong on November 26 to 28.

This combination of persistent low pressure to the north and west of Svalbard and a high-pressure center to the southeast created a strong, persistent flow from the south of relatively warm and moist air from the North Atlantic Ocean toward Svalbard, which then turned eastward along the marginal ice zone. This is seen as an extension of an atmospheric river into the Arctic. Atmospheric rivers are long narrow corridors that carry a large amount of water vapor. A recent study suggests that atmospheric rivers lead to ice loss by transporting warm, moist air into the Arctic that can limit sea ice growth. This is consistent with the observed pause in seasonal ice growth in late November.

And over the longer term:

[Update – December 26th]

From being near the bottom of the recent pack at the end of November, Arctic sea ice extent is now edging towards the top of the 2010s range. Here’s the AWI high resolution AMSR2 metric:

However sea ice volume has not followed suit, and remains near the bottom of the range:

Here’s an animation of sea ice motion over the last month, revealing amongst other things the recent rapid refreeze of the Chukchi Sea (click to animate):

[Update – December 29th]

Matt is getting very excited about the allegedly “high Arctic sea ice extent” over on XTwitter. So is Tony Heller, although he has also helpfully provided convincing empirical evidence that the IPCC’s global warming “predictions” are correct!

However neither of them seem to be at all interested in the age of Arctic sea ice. Here’s the early December update:

Drifting off topic only slightly, whilst perusing social media I also found this animation from Kev Pluck highly amusing:

https://twitter.com/kevpluck/status/1740174122850930979

The conversation continues on the New Year 2024 open thread.



Facts About the Arctic in September 2023

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There’s lots of coverage specifically about assorted Arctic sea ice extent metrics over on the “2023 Minimum Extent” thread. However we’ll start the September open thread ball rolling with a couple of cross posted images.

At the end of August JAXA daily extent was 7th lowest for the date, at 4.49 million km² :

The median prediction of the contributors to the August call by the Sea Ice Prediction Network for the September monthly average extent is 4.6 million km² :

Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in September 2023 →

The 2023 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent

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It’s that time of year again! Tony Heller has been asserting that “summer is over at the North Pole” for several weeks now, and the 2023 Arctic sea ice minimum extent will occur at some point over the next four or five weeks. The exact date and level will almost certainly vary from one extent metric to the next.

To get the minimum extent ball rolling, here’s Signe Aaboe’s graph of previous summer minima based on OSI SAF data:

Here too is Zack Labe’s equivalent, based on JAXA data:

Continue reading The 2023 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent →

The Information War with the Fossil Fuel Industry

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Here’s a few minutes old Xweet from my now ex Member of the European Parliament, Molly Scott Cato:

Here’s a template for Arctic sea ice trolls, helpfully provided by my very good friend “Snow White”:

Look dumbass. Al Gore says the Arctic is warming at 4 times the speed of the rest of planet, but the data says it’s GETTING COLDER!

[Edit – August 3rd]

By way of a change, which is of course as good as a rest, today let’s take a look at some academic psychology. According to the recently published “The illusory truth effect leads to the spread of misinformation” in the journal “Cognition”:

Continue reading The Information War with the Fossil Fuel Industry →

Facts About the Arctic in August 2023

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We have grandchildren visiting this week, so it seems prudent to get the new open thread started a day early, and before they wake up!

The ARCUS Sea Ice Prediction Network July report has recently been published. Here’s the graphic overview of the 30 predictions for September sea ice monthly average extent:

The July median forecasted value for pan-Arctic September sea-ice extent is 4.66 million square kilometers with interquartile values of 4.51 and 4.87 million square kilometers, while individual forecasts range from 3.12 and 5.30 million square kilometers. We note the lowest forecast is an outlier, and the only forecast that predicts a new record September sea-ice extent value (current record is September 2012, with a sea-ice extent of 3.57 million square kilometers).

Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in August 2023 →

Tony Heller’s Faithful Flock of Sheep

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My Arctic alter ego was checking out the new “X” rated edition of Twitter when “she” couldn’t help but notice that Elon Musk had allowed Tony Heller back into the climate “debate” thereon, albeit with a new handle.

“Snow White” also noticed that for some strange reason Tony was telling lots of porky pies about Arctic sea ice again! Hence:

and:

Continue reading Tony Heller’s Faithful Flock of Sheep →