JAXA/ViSHOP extent is no longer “lowest for the date”! After “flatlining” for most of April the metric is now in the midst of a close knit group of the other years in the 2020s:
The high pressure area over the Central Arctic persisted through the second half of April, and so did the consequent drift of ice from the Pacific side of the Arctic to the Atlantic periphery:
AWI’s sea ice area for the Greenland Sea is currently “highest for the date” in the AMSR2 record that started in July 2012:
The offshore winds along the Laptev Sea coast have continued, and sea ice area is now “lowest for the date”:
The first signs of a break in the high pressure dominance are appearing. GFS currently forecasts that a low pressure area will enter the Central Arctic, bring above zero temperatures over the Kara Sea on Sunday:
At the beginning of September JAXA/ViSHOP extent was 4th lowest for the date in the satellite era:
For much more detail on sea ice extent for the next few weeks please see the dedicated 2024 minimum thread. However, note that as extent has been flatlining sea ice area is still declining:
The latest AMSR2 sea ice concentration map from the Alfred Wegener Institute reveals that the area of thick ice in the Chukchi Sea has still not melted:
The most recent sea ice age map currently available dates from the beginning of August. Comparison with the concentration map shows that most of the remaining first year ice is highly fragmented, even close to the North Pole:
The 2024 Arctic sea ice minimum extent will almost certainly occur at some point over the next month. The exact date and level will vary from one extent metric to the next. Here’s a comparison of the current JAXA extent with previous minima, courtesy of Zack Labe:
Here too is a more detailed look at 2024 extent compared with the 5 lowest annual minima in the JAXA record:
By way of comparison, here is the equivalent graph for the OSI SAF extent metric, which experienced an up tick yesterday but has now reached a new low for the year:
However AWI Arctic sea ice area is currently falling, which may well presage further significant falls in extent:
The NSIDC web site is currently “experiencing technical difficulties”, but hopefully we’ll be able to take a look at their extent graph in the very near future.
[Update – September 4th]
The NSIDC web site is back in action, and their 5 day averaged extent metric is currently still falling quickly:
The ARCUS Sea Ice Prediction Network August report has been published. Note that the predicted numbers are for the September monthly average extent rather than the daily minimum:
For the August Outlook, we received 24 contributions of September pan-Arctic sea-ice extent forecasts…
The August 2024 median forecasted value for pan-Arctic September sea-ice extent is 4.27 million square kilometers with an interquartile range of 4.11 to 4.54 million square kilometers. This is about 200,000 square kilometers lower than the June median and about 250,000 square kilometers lower than the July median, which reflects the faster than average ice loss during July.
The lowest sea-ice extent forecast is 3.71 million square kilometers and the highest sea-ice extent forecast is 5.23 million square kilometers. These extremes are actually higher, particularly on the low end, than the estimates from July.
[Update – September 9th]
There’s been the tiniest of upticks in the NSIDC 5 day extent metric. 1 thousand km² to be precise. However, the others are still slowly declining:
[Update – September 10th]
NSIDC extent has posted a new low for the year, and JAXA extent is still declining. However there has been a slightly more substantial uptick in the OSI SAF metric:
The current minimum is 4.64 million km² on September 8th.
AWI sea ice area has posted a convincing looking minimum on September 4th, which suggests that the central refreeze is already well under way:
[Update – September 17th]
JAXA/ViSHOP/ADS extent has risen significantly over the last two days:
It now looks highly likely that the 2024 minimum will prove to be 4.07 million km² on September 13th. That is 4th lowest for the date, but equal 5th lowest minimum in the JAXA record.
A closer look at some of the other extent metrics will have to wait until this problem is solved:
Not good timing for a data outage!
[Update – September 22nd]
SSMIS data has been flowing again for a couple of days:
This graph may be subject to revision if and when the missing data is recovered, but currently it looks as though the 2024 minimum of the NSIDC 5 day averaged extent metric is 4.28 million km² on September 11th.
[Update – September 24th]
The National Snow and Ice Data Center formally announced today that:
On September 11, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 4.28 million square kilometers. The 2024 minimum is the seventh lowest in the nearly 46-year satellite record. The last 18 years, from 2007 to 2024, are the lowest 18 sea ice extents in the satellite record…
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.
The NSIDC also addressed the recent missing SSMIS data issue mentioned above as follows:
Note that a gap exists in the input source data between September 12 and September 18. This gap somewhat lowers our confidence in the minimum extent estimate. However, it appears that September 11 is the mostly likely date of the minimum based on data trends in daily extent values leading up to the 5-day average on September 11 and the extent values after data restarted on September 18. If extent did drop further between September 11 and September 18, it would have been marginal. If the input source data becomes available to fill that gap, our team will update the minimum estimate if necessary.
The first sea ice outlook report for 2024 has been published by the Sea Ice Prediction Network:
This year’s median forecasted value for pan-Arctic September sea-ice extent is 4.48 million square kilometers with an interquartile range of 4.21 to 4.74 million square kilometers. This is slightly lower than the 2022 (4.57 million square kilometers) and 2023 (4.54 million square kilometers) June median forecasts for September.
The lowest sea-ice extent forecast is 3.1 million square kilometers, from the UK Met Office, which would be a new record low for the satellite period (1979-present); the highest sea-ice extent forecast is 5.21 million square kilometers, submitted by both the HEU Group and SYSU/SML-MLM, which would be the highest September extent since 2015:
There are three heuristic Outlooks, with a median of 4.32 million square kilometers and an interquartile range of 4.26 to 4.4 million square kilometers. Statistical submissions total fifteen Outlooks with a median of 4.68 million square kilometers and an interquartile range of 4.47 to 4.9 million square kilometers. There are nine dynamical model contributions. The dynamical models have a median forecast of 3.97 million square kilometers with an interquartile range of 3.68 to 4.35 million square kilometers.
The JAXA/ViSHOP web site is currently down, so here is the current OSI SAF extent graph for the end of May:
2012’s “June cliff” is almost upon us, and if 2024’s current trajectory continues extent will cross above 2012 for the first time since February in a week or so.
A change is perhaps even better than a rest? Let’s start February with a reminder that following close behind another recent Arctic cyclone, Storm Ingunn caused red weather warnings for high winds and avalanches in Norway two days ago:
By yesterday evening another long period, storm driven swell was arriving at the sea ice edge in the Fram Strait, and to a lesser extent in the Barents Sea:
By this morning Ingunn had merged with the remnants of the prior cyclone, as revealed in Climate Reanalyzer’s visualisation of the latest GFS model run::
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).
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:
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
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