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).
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:
Here's @TonyClimate demonstrating yet again that either:
1) He has no understanding of all things #Arctic, or
2) He understands well enough, but he pulls the wool over the eyes of his faithful flock of followers.https://t.co/yYNhpSncLE
After briefly being near the bottom of the historical range at the beginning of the month, AWI’s high resolution AMSR2 area metric is now back near the top of that range:
However, although it’s not visible on the area graph extent has recently taken a bit of a tumble:
Here’s an animation showing the motion of sea ice in the Arctic over the last month:
Data from the Northern Sea Route General Administration web site about the current positions of ships voyaging along the Northern Sea Route reveal that the liquified natural gas carrier Fedor Litke is currently following the icebreaker Sibir through the East Siberian Sea, heading for the Bering Strait:
Prompted by a comment by Tom in the June open thread, the time has evidently come to open the 2023 Northwest Passage passage thread. First of all let’s get our bearings with the help of this map of the area:
and another map detailing the routes through Canadian Arctic Archipelago that have previously been successfully traversed:
As our starter for ten for 2023, there is already plenty of open water in the Amundsen Gulf, together with plenty of melt ponding on the remaining fast ice in Franklin and Darnley Bays:
By way of a change, which is allegedly as good as a rest, let’s start the new month with a very pretty and almost cloud free “pseudo-colour” image of the Lena Delta and adjacent areas of the Laptev Sea:
“False colour” image of the Lena Delta on June 1st from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite
Arctic sea ice extent in early April is singularly unexceptional. Here’s the AWI AMSR2 version:
Things start to become more interesting when looking at the third dimension. Here’s the PIOMAS gridded thickness map for March 31st:
and the CryoSat-2/SMOS map for the same date:
Note the differing distribution of thick ice north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between the two maps. Note also the area of thinner ice along the coast of the Beaufort Sea visible on the CS2/SMOS map.
By way of explanation for that phenomenon see the March sea level pressure map from the latest edition of the NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News:
We’ll come on to the Arctic in a moment, but at more temperate latitudes I am proud to announce that my Cornish alter ego has been officially outed as an “environmental campaigner” by the BBC. Moving pictures of yours truly, discussing drought rather than sea ice, are available via BBC iPlayer until around 18:30 this evening, possibly to UK residents only.
[Stop Press! A shorter version of Kirk England’s report on two potential desalination plants in Cornwall (also including my 15 seconds of fame!) is available here until around 22:30 this evening ]
Alternatively we have recorded our own moving pictures of this momentous event:
Zack’s graph displays the JAXA/ViSHOP version of Arctic extent, so here too is JAXA’s own graph of the current sea ice extent:
It doesn’t look as though the 2023 maximum has been achieved yet, but extent on March 1st was 14.01 million km². That is evidently not going to be the lowest in the satellite era!
[Edit – March 8th]
As Tom has already mentioned below, JAXA extent has declined significantly since the (so far!) peak extent of 14.12 million km² on both the 2nd and 3rd of March:
It’s too soon to be certain of course, but we certainly now have a good candidate for the 2023 maximum JAXA extent.
NSIDC 5 day averaged extent is still increasing, but let’s see what this afternoon’s update (UTC) reveals…
Which is a decrease of 0.001 million km² from March 6th, leaving a current NSIDC maximum extent of 14.62 million km²!
Finally, for the moment at least, AWI’s “high resolution” AMSR2 extent looks a lot less convincing than JAXA’s:
[Edit – March 11th]
NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent took a tumble yesterday, so with only mild trepidation I’m calling the 2023 maximum extent. In the case of the NSIDC’s 5 day average metric that’s still a rounded up 14.62 million km² on March 6th:
The JAXA/ViSHOP maximum extent remains at 14.12 million km² on March 2nd:
The “high resolution” AMSR2 based metric from AWI peaked at 14.24 million km² on March 5th:
[Edit – March 16th]
They are of course a bit late with the news, but the NSIDC have now called the 2023 maximum Arctic sea ice extent:
Arctic sea ice has likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.62 million square kilometers (5.64 million square miles) on March 6. The 2023 maximum is the fifth lowest in the 45-year satellite record. NSIDC scientists will present a detailed analysis of the 2022 to 2023 winter sea ice conditions in the regular monthly post in early April:
The date of the maximum this year, March 6, was six days earlier than the 1981 to 2010 average date of March 12…
The ice growth season ended with below average sea ice extent in the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, Barents Sea, and Labrador Sea. Above average extent was in the Greenland Sea. Extent was well below average in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a second year in row.
Watch this space!
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