I only found out about this webinar after it had already started. My Arctic alter ego somewhat cheekily suggested to the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS for short) that our research into waves in the Arctic was ahead of theirs, and was rather surprised when they agreed with “her”!
You are! Happening now, join us here: https://t.co/nDuhoT8LRw or watch posted recording on our youtube channel in about a week.
Fortunately the “Ocean Waves in the New Arctic” webinar was recorded, and here it is in its entirety:
See if you can spot the question “Snow White” asked?
Amongst other things, Jim mentioned in his talk coastal erosion due to increased wave action. That included a flooding event at Utqiaġvik (Barrow) in 2017. Here’s what happened during a similar event there in 2015:
Photograph by Brittni Driver via Alaska Dispatch News
Jim also mentioned the erosion of the permafrost bluff at Drew Point, exacerbated by increasing wave action. According to a recent article on that topic:
Eroding permafrost coasts are likely indicators and integrators of changes in the Arctic System as they are susceptible to the combined effects of declining sea ice extent, increases in open water duration, more frequent and impactful storms, sea-level rise, and warming permafrost.
Our results show that mean annual erosion for the 2007–2016 decade was 17.2 m yr−1, which is 2.5 times faster than historic rates, indicating that bluff erosion at this site is likely responding to changes in the Arctic System.
Here’s a video of permafrost disappearing into the Beaufort Sea in 2008:
[Edit – March 1st]
A slightly less technical video from the University of Washington featuring Jim Thomson and some big waves in the New Arctic:
Our title for today refers back to the Great Arctic Cyclone of August 2012. There has been some speculation over on the Arctic Sea Ice Blog about whether a similar event is about to occur this year.
It’s later in the season of course, but as is our wont we always look at the waves first. Here is the current WaveWatch III forecast for the evening of August 31st UTC:
In summary the forecast shows some very large waves with a substantial period for inside the Arctic Circle directed straight at the ice edge. Let’s follow the forecast over the next few days carefully shall we?
[Edit – August 30th]
The latest wave forecast for tomorrow evening isn’t as extreme as 3 days ago. Note the change in the significant height scale:
Nonetheless the height and period are still very significant!
[Edit – August 31st]
Here’s the latest forecast for 6 PM this evening (UTC):
Note how the open water across almost the entire map is full of what in the Arctic counts as a long period swell. That means that the forecast for 2 days later looks like this:
Less height but with a longer period. All of which means that the sea ice north of the Atlantic Ocean isn’t about to receive a short sharp shock. It has a sustained battering lasting several days to look forward to.
[Edit – September 1st]
The barrage of assorted swells has begun. Here’s the “hindcast” from midnight last night UTC:
Now lets take a look at tomorrow’s forecast for the Laptev Sea. This is for 09:00 UTC:
Note once again the change of scale on the wave/swell height map. Nevertheless a 3+ meter swell heading over into the East Siberian Sea isn’t something you see every day.
Now were into September the 2018 annual minimum extent can’t be too far away. Extent decline appears to have stalled. However “high res” AMSR2 area is currently falling fast, for the time of year at least:
[Edit – September 2nd]
Here are the swell and period forecasts at midnight for round about now, 09:00 UTC:
All the seas between Greenland and the New Siberian Islands are awash with swells with a period of 8 second or greater. This is most unusual, to put it mildly!
[Edit – September 3rd]
Here’s the WaveWatch III “hindcast” from midnight last night UTC for the Russian side of the Arctic Ocean:
There are still significant swells almost everywhere you look.
[Edit – September 4th]
Using the same scales as yesterday, here’s today’s hindcast from midnight:
There’s still plenty of action in the Arctic Ocean!
[Edit – September 5th]
Feel free to debate whether it merits the “Great” prefix, but this is how the early September 2018 Arctic cyclone has panned out. According to this morning’s Environment Canada synopsis the cyclone is centred near the coast of the Laptev Sea and is down to a MSLP of 977 hPa:
Here’s another WaveWatch III hindcast from midnight UTC:
[Edit – September 6th]
Need I say more?
[Edit – September 7th]
The swell in the Fram Strait an Barents Sea is diminishing, but the period in the Laptev Sea is increasing now:
[Edit – September 8th]
All the wave activity in the Laptev Sea is diminishing. Here’s the hindcast from midnight:
Meanwhile things are warming up in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Here’s the forecast for midnight tonight:
[Edit – September 9th]
Here’s the hindcast for this morning’s swell in the Beaufort Sea:
This is currently a long way into the future and hence may not verify in practice. However any pulse of swell is currently forecast for September 13th:
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
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
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
Here’s the 6 hour wave forecast for the Fram Strait from 12:00 UTC this afternoon:
Look at the scales carefully then compare the wave height and period with previous similar events. Here’s the cause of those giant waves, two powerful cyclones off Greenland pumping heat and moisture northwards from a long way south:
The Central Arctic has of course already been battered by the Great Arctic Cyclone(s) of August 2016. The minimum sea ice extent has been called by the NSIDC, with a slight proviso:
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its seasonal minimum extent for 2016 on September 10. A relatively rapid loss of sea ice in the first ten days of September has pushed the ice extent to a statistical tie with 2007 for the second lowest in the satellite record. September’s low extent followed a summer characterized by conditions generally unfavorable for sea ice loss.
Please note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds or late-season melt could still reduce the Arctic ice extent, as happened in 2005 and 2010. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the Arctic melt season, and discuss the Antarctic winter sea ice growth, in early October.
On September 10, Arctic sea ice extent stood at 4.14 million square kilometers (1.60 million square miles).
Now, however, yet another cyclone is raging in the Central Arctic. According to Environment Canada this one is already down to a mean sea level pressure of 975 hPa:
As our regular readers will be well aware, at this time of year strong winds beget large swells. On this occasion it looks as though Barrow will get another battering, as well as the remaining and refreezing sea ice. Here’s the current WaveWatch III significant wave height forecast for September 18th:
Such large swells on the surface of the Arctic Ocean don’t only physically break up the sea ice. Last September scientists aboard the University of Alaska’s research icebreaker Sikuliaq observed the effects of a similar storm in the Beaufort Sea. According to Jennifer MacKinnon, Chief Scientist on the ArcticMix voyage:
One of the funny things about the Arctic is that there’s a reservoir of heat beneath the surface here.
So the more the wind is blowing on the ocean, the more it’s mixing this heat upwards. Which is bringing warmer water to the surface at a pretty rapid rate, warming the surface and accelerating the rate at which this ice is melting.
And if storms like this continue, as there’s more open water, more storms mean more exposed surface. It will not only melt the ice in the summer, but delay the onset of fall ice formation and accelerate the onset of spring ice melting.
In October 2015 the Sikuliaq was back in the Beaufort Sea observing the effect of storm swells on refreezing sea ice. Here’s a report from Chief Scientist Jim Thomson:
A strong easterly wind event came through that built large waves — waves that got to almost five meters in height. And the winds were something like up to thirty knots. And these waves were coming into the newly forming ice and making pancake ice.
There was a very warm layer of water 20 meters down beneath the surface. And these waves coming in were enough to drive additional mixing and bring that warm water up from the subsurface and that warm water melted the ice and changed that balance happening at the surface.
As if all that wasn’t already enough to worry about look who’s waiting in the wings. Tropical Storm Ian is heading towards the Arctic Circle at a rate of knots, even as we speak:
SURF ZONE FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BARROW AK
0500 AM AKDT SAT SEP 17 2016
AKZ202-171230-
NORTHERN ARCTIC COAST
INCLUDING THE BEACHES OF BARROW…PITT POINT…NULAVIK
0500 AM AKDT SAT SEP 17 2016
.TODAY AND TONIGHT…
.WIND… WESTERLY 20 TO 35 MPH.
.SURF HEIGHT… 2 TO 5 FT.
.SURF TEMP… 36 DEGREES F.
.TIDES… LOW SAT 0826 AM -0.03
HIGH SAT 0230 PM 0.38
LOW SAT 0846 PM -0.02
HIGH SUN 0250 AM 0.38
…HIGH SURF ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM AKDT MONDAY…
* WAVES AND SURF…WAVES TO 10 FEET BREAKING JUST OFFSHORE COMBINED WITH TIDES UP TO 1 FOOT ABOVE NORMAL WILL CAUSE HIGH SURF CONDITIONS.
* ICE…WITH ICE JUST OFF SHORE FROM BARROW…IT IS POSSIBLE THAT CHUNKS OF SEA ICE WILL WASH UP ON SHORE EVEN WITH WINDS PREDICTED TO BE AT NEARLY PARALLEL TO THE SHORE.
* WINDS…WEST 20 TO 30 MPH FROM THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH EARLY MONDAY MORNING.
* TIMING…HIGH SURF IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND CONTINUE THROUGH EARLY MONDAY.
* IMPACTS…HIGH SURF WILL WASH TO THE TOP OF THE BEACH AND CAUSE BEACH EROSION. MINOR FLOODING OF LOW LYING AREAS IS POSSIBLE AND SURF COULD WASH ONTO LOW LYING ROADS NEAR THE BEACH.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A HIGH SURF ADVISORY MEANS THAT LOCALIZED BEACH EROSION IS EXPECTED. SURF COULD WASH ONTO LOW LYING ROADS NEAR THE BEACH LIMITING TRAVEL NEAR THE BEACH. PEOPLE SHOULD MOVE BOATS AND PERSONAL PROPERTY INLAND FROM THE BEACH.
[Edit – September 19th]
Somewhat belatedly, before:
and after:
the storm images from the Barrow webcam, which has just burst back into life. Plus an image of the cyclone from on high:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on September 18th 2016, derived from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi satellite
A storm is brewing in the Arctic. A big one! The crew of the yacht Northabout are currently sailing along the western shore of the Laptev Sea and reported earlier today that:
The sea is calm. Tomorrow a gale 8. But this moment is perfect.
That perfect moment will not last long. Here is the current ECMWF forecast for midnight tomorrow:
and here is the current Arctic surf forecast for 06:00 UTC on Monday:
A 975 hPa low pressure system will be creating 3 meter waves with a period of around 8 seconds heading across the East Siberian Sea in the direction of the ice edge. By midnight on Monday the cyclone is forecast to have deepened to a central pressure below 970 hPa:
All of this is rather reminiscent of the “Great Arctic Cyclone” in the summer of 2012, which looked like this on August 7th:
and which ultimately led to the lowest Arctic sea ice extent in the satellite record. Using the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s numbers that was 3.41 million square kilometers on September 16th 2012. Here’s the NSIDC’s current graph comparing 2012 with this year:
I wonder what the minimum for 2016 will be, and on what date?
Here’s how the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2016 looks from on high this morning:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the ‘Great Arctic Cyclone’ on August 15th 2016, derived from the VIIRS sensor on the Suomi satellite
The latest synopsis from Environment Canada shows that the central pressure of the cyclone is now down to 974 hPa:
The WaveWatch III forecast for noon today UTC confirms the forecast of two days ago:
P.S. The Canadian 0600Z synopsis has the cyclone’s SLP down to 971 hPa:
[Edit – August 16th]
This morning the cyclone’s SLP is down to 969 hPa:
and the clouds over the Central Arctic are parting:
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Arctic Basin on August 16th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
Our favourite method of seeing through the clouds using the AMSR2 maps from the University of Hamburg doesn’t seem to working at the moment, so here’s one from the University of Bremen instead:
The cyclone central pressure is now up to 983 hPa, and some indications of the effect it has had on the sea ice in the Arctic are being revealed:
[Edit – August 19th]
According to Environment Canada the cyclone’s central pressure rose to 985 hPa earlier today:
However the 987 hPa low near the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is currently forecast to deepen below 980 hPa over the next 24 hours. Here’s the ECMWF forecast for first thing tomorrow morning:
The high resolution AMSR2 Arctic sea ice area has reduced by another 133.5 thousand square kilometers since yesterday. A similar drop tomorrow will take us below the 2015 minimum.
[Edit – August 19th PM]
The MSLP of the rejuvenated cyclone had dropped to 976 hPa by 12:00 UTC today:
The ECMWF forecast for lunchtime tomorrow is for something similar:
[Edit – August 20th]
The current incarnation of the cyclone bottomed out at 971 hPa near the Canadian Arctic Archipelago:
The 72 hour forecast from ECMWF for the next phase of GAC 2016 is beginning to enter the realms of plausibility. Here’s what it reveals:
The University of Hamburg have been processing more AMSR2 data from 2012. You can argue until the cows come home about which is the best metric to peruse at this time of year, but try this one for size:
That’s the high resolution AMSR2 sea ice area for the Arctic Basin, comprising the CAB plus Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian and Laptev Seas.
[Edit – August 25th]
There’s a bit of a gap in the clouds over the Central Arctic today:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Central Arctic Basin on August 25th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
This is merely the calm before the next storm. Here is the current ECMWF forecast for Saturday lunchtime (UTC):
Low pressure on the Siberian side of the Arctic and high pressure on the Canadian side producing an impressive dipole with lots of sea ice “drift” towards the Atlantic:
[Edit – August 27th]
Saturday morning has arrived, and so has the predicted storm. As the centre of the cyclone crossed the coast of the East Siberian Sea its central pressure had fallen to 967 hPa, whilst the high pressure over Alaska had risen to 1028 hPa:
The effect of the earlier bursts of high wind is apparent in the high resolution AMSR2 sea ice area graph:
However they are not as apparent in the corresponding extent graph:
[Edit – August 28th]
As the centre of the cyclone heads for the North Pole the isobars are tightening across the last refuge of multi-year sea ice north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland:
The area north of the East Siberian Sea that was predicted to bear the brunt of the wind and waves overnight is still covered in cloud. However the latest AMSR2 update from the University of Hamburg suggests that open water now stretches as far as 86 degrees north:
The skies over the northern Chukchi Sea have cleared to reveal this:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the northern Chukchi Sea on August 28th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite
[Edit – August 29th]
Some of the effects of the recent high winds can be judged by this Canadian Ice Service chart of ice concentration near the North Pole:
[Edit – September 1st]
Arctic sea ice area continues to fall quickly for the time of year:
The recent dipole has finally caused some compaction of the scattered sea ice. Hence the high resolution AMSR2 extent is following suit and is now below last year’s minimum:
It looks like a storm is brewing in the Arctic. The long range weather forecasts for the Arctic have been remarkably unreliable recently, but this one is for a mere three days from now. WaveWatch III suggests there will be some significant waves in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas this coming weekend, travelling in the direction of the ice edge:
WaveWatch III wave height forecast for July 17thWaveWatch III wave period forecast for July 17thWaveWatch III wind forecast for July 17th
Another day has dawned, and the Environment Canada synoptic chart shows that the low pressure system currently over the Arctic has reached a central pressure of 990 hPa:
The latest ECMWF SLP forecast for tomorrow is firming up:
A modest swell is now visible from USCGC Healy’s “AloftCon” webcam:
whilst the WaveWatch III forecast for tomorrow has dropped off to a significant wave height of around 2 metres with an average period of 7 seconds:
Meanwhile an image from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite reveals the current storm in all its glory, together with confirmation that the “Big Block” multi-year ice floe north of Barrow has split asunder overnight:
[Edit July 17th 2016]
Sunday morning has now arrived. The storm in the Arctic looks to have bottomed out at 986 hPa central pressure. Here’s the Environment Canada synoptic chart for 00:00 this morning:
This is how the resultant swell looked from USCGC Healy at 06:00:
[Edit July 18th 2016]
Here’s what the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea north of Barrow look like this morning through the clouds:
NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on July 18th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite
The remains of the now not so “Big Block” can just be made out in the bottom left. For a cloud free image here’s the latest AMSR2 passive microwave imagery of the area from the University of Hamburg:
The USCGC Healy and the remnants of the swell are in amongst the ice:
[Edit July 20th 2016]
As the remnants of the storm head off across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago here is what it has left in its wake in the Central Arctic Basin:
NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Central Arctic Basin on July 19th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satelliteUniversity of Hamburg AMSR2 concentration visualisation of the Central Arctic on July 19th 2016
[Edit July 21st 2016]
The storm has dispersed the remaining ice in the Beaufort Sea over the last few days:
However across the Arctic as a whole sea ice area continues its downward trend:
As regular readers will be aware we have been following the progress of the Great Arctic Anticyclone of 2016 for the last 3 weeks or so and the generation of increasingly large waves in the Beaufort Sea in August and September for the last 3 years or so. Today we combine the two to bring you news of anomalously large waves in the Beaufort Sea earlier this week. In actual fact any sort of waves in the Beaufort Sea at this time of year would be anomalous, since normally the Beaufort is still covered in sea ice in April!
Firstly a bit of background information. In the continuing absence of the DMSP F-17 satellite data used by the NSIDC for their Arctic sea ice metrics, here’s a close up look at Arctische Pinguin’s current Beaufort Sea ice area data:
Now here’s NOAA’s WaveWatch III “hindcast” of the winds over the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016:
WaveWatch III wind hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016
Notice the continuing easterly winds from the persistent high pressure system centred to the north of the Beaufort Sea. Next here’s the resultant wind wave height:
WaveWatch III wave height hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016
and the associated wind wave period:
WaveWatch III wave period hindcast for the Beaufort Sea on April 26th 2016
Wind waves with a height of around 1.5 meters and a period of 6 seconds wouldn’t tempt me to go out on a surfing expedition, but they would certainly be enough to interfere with the sea ice formation process, as you can see from this “pseudo-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on April 26th from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite:
Unfortunately the Jason 2 and recently launched Jason 3 satellites don’t measure wave heights in bodies of water as far north as the Beaufort Sea, so we’ll have to content ourselves with the modelled data from WaveWatch III. However here’s a brief video explaining how Jason 3 measurements are now used to assist WaveWatch forecasts further south:
Whilst Jason 3 won’t be watching waves in the Arctic Ocean it looks as though the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 3A satellite will be providing wave height data for the Beaufort Sea in the not too distant future:
It also looks as though CryoSat-2 is already potentially providing such data, but as far as I can ascertain it’s not available in handy gridded format in the same way that the CS2 near real time ice thickness data is.
The first big waves of 2015 have been battering the town of Barrow, Alaska today and they’ve already broken through the coastal defences. Firstly take a look at the view from the Barrow webcam during a less damaging storm on September 4th last year:
Now take a look at the view from the same camera earlier today, and play “spot the difference” with me:
The cause of the flooding that is all too visible is a cyclone that’s been whirling around in the Chukchi Sea for a while, and here is a WaveWatch III “hindcast” of what the resultant winds have created in the way of waves. Firstly the “significant wave height”:
and now the “peak period”:
which reveal a swell 4 to 5 metres high with a period of 10 seconds heading directly towards Barrow Beach. According to the Alaska Dispatch News:
Huge, wind-whipped waves crashed onto the shore at Barrow on Thursday, forcing the closure of a nearby road. Westerly winds were gusting up to 50 miles an hour, pushing waves up to the top of the beach and causing some erosion, the National Weather Service said.
The service has issued a coastal flood warning for Barrow until Friday morning, along with a high surf advisory for the western part of the North Slope and a gale warning for much of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
The big surf and flooding, which has covered a road that runs between the ocean and Barrow’s lagoon, is “not terribly unusual” at this time of the year, said Ryan Metzger, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fairbanks. Fall is a stormy season, and the timing — right around the annual minimum sea ice extent — allows the surf to build and reach shore.
Photograph by Brittni Driver via Alaska Dispatch News
Just in case it’s not obvious from all the pictures, the respective advisory messages point out that:
A COASTAL FLOOD WARNING MEANS THAT RISING SEA WATER THAT CAUSES FLOODING IS EXPECTED. COASTAL RESIDENTS IN THE WARNED AREA SHOULD BE ALERT FOR RISING WATER…AND TAKE ACTIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY.
A HIGH SURF ADVISORY MEANS THAT LOCALIZED BEACH EROSION IS EXPECTED. PRECAUTIONS SHOULD BE TAKEN TO PROTECT PROPERTY.
If you’re now wondering what might happen to other areas of the north coast of Alaska in similar circumstances, but with no bulldozer in attendance, here’s an example from Cape Halkett:
Thawing permafrost causes coastline collapse on Alaska’s North Slope, which is no longer kept frozen and protected from fall storms by sea ice—the ice now forms later in the season.
Away from the coast swell from the same cyclone has also been affecting the sea ice north of Barrow, and here’s what a webcam bobbing about on a buoy north of the Chukchi Sea showed as the winds started to build yesterday:
O-Buoy 12 image from August 26th 2015
O-Buoy 12 has now tipped over and then ceased transmitting. This is the last picture received, in the early hours of August 27th when the wind speed had reached 13 m/s and the buoy had been moving at over 5 m/s:
Once upon a time O-Buoy 12 was sat on the same ice floe as ice mass balance buoy 2014G, which has also been free floating for a while. Here’s what it reveals about the temperature of the sea water on August 26th 2015 at 77.56 N, 163.86 W:
Somewhere in the vicinity of -0.7 °C.
[Edit on 30/08/2015]
O-Buoy 12 has made no further transmissions, and therefore seems to have succumbed to the storm. In addition IMB buoys 2014F and 2013F stopped transmitting on the 26th and 27th of August respectively. Ice mass balance buoy 2014G has survived however, and reports two successive record daily distances travelled:
25.6 km on August 26th, followed by 36.3 km on the 27th. After a brief dip during the cyclone water temperature is still around -0.7 °C.
Presumably as a result of the cyclone JAXA Arctic sea ice extent has taken a tumble over the last few days. It has stabilised this morning slightly above 2007 levels:
Here is the current AMSR2 Arctic sea ice concentration map from the University of Hamburg, revealing a large potential fetch across the East Siberian, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas should any further cyclones occur in the area over the next few weeks:
AMSR2 Arctic sea ice concentration on August 29th from the University of Hamburg
Hence the conditions now exist for an even more damaging swell to be generated before the 2015 minimum Arctic sea ice extent is reached.
R/V Lance serendipitously encountered an energetic wave event around 77°N, 26°E on 2 May 2010. Onboard GPS records, interpreted as the surface wave signal, show the largest waves recorded in the Arctic region with ice cover. Comparing the measurements with a spectral wave model indicated three phases of interaction:
wave blocking by ice
strong attenuation of wave energy and fracturing of ice by wave forcing, and
uninhibited propagation of the peak waves and an extension of allowed waves to higher frequencies (above the peak)
Wave properties during fracturing of ice cover indicated increased groupiness. Wave-ice interaction presented binary behavior: there was zero transmission in unbroken ice and total transmission in fractured ice. The fractured ice front traveled at some fraction of the wave group speed. Findings do not motivate new dissipation schemes for wave models, though they do indicate the need for two-way, wave-ice coupling.
There’s a lot of equations and similarly technical stuff in the body of the paper which is nevertheless well worth a read even if you’re not a techie, as are the articles in the long list of references at the end. However, there aren’t any “swell forecasts” of the sort we like to put in our discussions of “waves-in-ice“, so firstly let’s fix that. Here’s some visualisations from NOAA’s WaveWatch III reanalysis for 18:00 on May 2nd 2010:
which reveal a swell with a significant height of 6 meters and a period of 11 seconds in the open ocean south of Hopen Island and Svalbard. Collins et al. concluded that:
Our results suggest that accurate wave prediction would have required coupling with an ice model which resolved scales of hours and kilometers. Implementation at such scales will no doubt be a future challenge. These are the largest known waves recorded in the Arctic with substantial ice cover present, and we expect the measurement of large-wave events to occur more frequently in the future due to the fetch wave-ice fetch feedback loop.
Now comes news that the R/V Lance has been subject to another “waves-in-ice” event, although this time it was north of Svalbard. First of all here’s a video showing an earlier stage of the Lance’s 2015 Arctic program:
Next the latest serendipitous encounter for the Lance. According to the Twitter feed of the Oceanography & Sea Ice department of the Norwegian Polar Institute on June 22nd 2015:
The sea ice floe with the N-ICE2015 research camp broke
Now some further information (and more pictures!) has emerged via the Twitter feed of Harvey Goodwin, who says that:
When a light swell comes in the 5km sea ice floe we’d been working on broke into pieces not more than 30m [across] in an hour:
Equipment rescue[d] after sea ice breakup. Some cables cut but no equipment lost!
The WaveWatch III reanalysis for June 2015 isn’t available yet. We’ll bring you that information once it is, but for now here’s a couple of quick snapshots from the Magic Seaweed surf forecasting site:
They suggest that a smaller but longer period swell was responsible for the ice break up this time around, compared to 2010. I wonder if it will take another 5 years for this latest event to be more fully documented in the scientific literature?
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