Tag Archives: ASIF

The Arctic Sea Ice Forum

The Great White Con 2019 “New Einstein” Award

March 1, 2019SatireASIF, Freegrass, Lurk, New Einstein, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Spike55, Tony HellerJim Hunt

The omens are good that 2019 is destined to be a year of firsts in the Arctic. Our regular reader(s) will no doubt fondly recall previous editions of our annual Great White Con “New Einstein” Award? 2019’s competition breaks all the moulds by opening the running with a quote from Snow White’s home from home at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum rather than one of the usual “skeptical” venues!

Here for your delectation is the very first “New Einstein” contestant of the 2019 melting season:

1) Lurk at the ASIF, with:

Your unnecessary over the top haughtiness and implicit threats is not helping your communication style one bit Jim. I am far from impressed atm with your version of the Ivory Tower you seem to inhabit. By all means ‘sharpen your sword’ if that is what you imagine you are dealing with because someone says they do not quite understand what you thread is all about.

You can either answer such reasonable questions with a modicum of sincerity and genuineness or continue in the direction you are heading.

2) Spike55 at unRealScience, with:

You’re an idiot.

A LIAR.

A child-minded troll

And a slimebag con-man.

That’s all.

3) Freegrass at the ASIF, with:

What I found out these last 3 months as a Newbie on this forum is that some people here don’t like it when new members take away the spotlight from the oldtimers. All they do is moan and bitch over file sizes, but they fail to reply to any other message I post. So what we have here my dear friend is a textbook example of bigotry. We are excluded from the group… They rather have we left, so they get all the attention again… But who cares? Leave those idiots be. Do what you know to be right, and work together for the benefit of all mankind!

in conjunction with:

Your only contributions to this thread have been complaints and promotions for your own website.

Please refrain from doing so! If you have some Nullschool animation to contribute or comments on the work that is posted here, feel free to do so! If you only come here to complain and tell people what to do, please go away!

and not forgetting:

May I remind everyone that this is the Nullschool Animations thread. I made this thread because you bastards complaint about my graphics on the melting season thread, and now you come here to bitch AGAIN? GO FUCK YOURSELVES!!!!!!!!

Facts About the Arctic in October 2018

October 21, 2018VolumeArea, ASIF, CPOM, CryoSat-2, DMI, Extent, FDD, Hamburg Uni, JAXA, PIOMAS, SMOS, Volume, Wandel Sea, WipneusJim Hunt

A somewhat belated start to our October 2018 coverage, but firstly please take a look at this graph:

Following a remarkably sluggish refreeze this year JAXA extent is currently the lowest for the date since their records began. Meanwhile Wipneus has just released his mid month PIOMAS volume update on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

That graph reveals that Arctic sea ice volume has been increasing much more slowly than usual during October. The fact that the DMI freezing degree days graph is currently below all previous years in their records no doubt has something to do with that:

Wipneus has also updated the mid month PIOMAS gridded thickness map:

That’s the output of a model of course, but here too is the CPOM version of CryoSat-2 “measured” thickness:

Both sources agree that there’s a remarkable lack of thick ice in the Wandel Sea off north east Greenland this Autumn.

For a handle on the areas of thinner ice where refreezing is taking place around the periphery of the pack, here’s the latest SMOS map:

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s our favourite high resolution AMSR2 area and extent metrics based on JAXA data processed by the University of Hamburg to produced gridded concentration which is then used to derive area and extent by the inimitable Wipneus once again:

[Edit – October 28th]

Here’s the latest thickness maps from SMOS:

and CryoSat-2:

There’s been a recent rapid refreeze, leaving large areas of thin ice around the edges of the central pack:

Could Northabout Circumnavigate Greenland in 2018?

August 20, 2018GreenlandASIF, AWI, DMI, Greenland, Guardian, Jonathan Watts, Kap Morris Jesup, Laptev Sea, Last Ice Area, Lincoln Sea, Northabout, Polarstern, Ruth Mottram, SAR, Sentinel, SMOS, Ward Hunt Ice ShelfJim Hunt

Our regular reader(s) may recall our extended coverage on the plucky little yacht Northabout‘s ultimately successful attempt to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean in the summer of 2016?

Many were the skeptics who said she stood no chance of finding a way through some “thick sea ice” apparently blocking her path across the Laptev Sea, but they were proved wrong:

As a thought experiment in the summer of 2018 we’re now thinking the unthinkable. If she put her mind to it could Northabout circumnavigate Greenland in 2018? Let’s take a look at the evidence shall we? The allegedly “oldest, thickest Arctic sea ice” north of Greenland isn’t there any more this summer:

The research icebreaker Polarstern has already inspected the open waters off Kap Morris Jesup, the most northerly tip of Greenland:

What’s more the waters of the Lincoln Sea currently look no more tricky to traverse than the Laptev Sea in August 2016:

In conclusion, for the moment at least, what’s the theoretical solution to our 2018 thought experiment?

Here’s another thought to ponder as well. I don’t suppose it’s in the Alfred Wegener Institute’s PS115 mission plan, but do you suppose Polarstern could circumnavigate Greenland at the moment?

[Edit – August 23rd]

The University of Bremen used not to publish their Arctic sea ice “thinness” maps in summer. However now they do, so here’s a close up of Northern Greenland for August 22nd:

[Edit – August 26th]

First of all here’s one of our occasional sea ice motion videos:

This one reveals the open water north of Greenland in February as well as the much longer event in August. Next here’s a Sentinel 1B synthetic aperture radar image of the Kap Morris Jesup area from yesterday:

Meanwhile thanks to a heads up from Treform2 on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum comes evidence that on the other side of the Lincoln Sea the last remnants of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf are “disintegrating”:

The 2017/18 Festive Season in the Arctic

December 7, 2017VolumeASIF, Axel Schweiger, Chukchi Sea, CryoSat-2, DMI, Ivana Cvijanovic, NSIDC, PIOMAS, Rebecca Woodgate, SMOS, Thickness, Volume, WipneusJim Hunt

Christmas is coming, and Santa’s secret summer swimming pool has frozen over once again. However the same can’t be said for the Chukchi Sea! More on that in due course, but first let’s take a look at the PIOMAS volume graph at the end of November, courtesy of the wondrous Wipneus on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

2017 is currently third lowest, behind 2012 and 2016. Next let’s take a look at Wipneus’ PIOMAS Arctic sea ice thickness map:

followed by the University of Bremen’s SMOS Arctic sea ice thickness map:

Note the large area of pale blue open ocean still visible in the Chukchi Sea towards the top left of both maps.

For another perspective on Arctic sea ice thickness here’s the latest Cryosat-2 map, which currently is based on the month up to November 24th:

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s our very own Arctic Freezing Degree Days graph based on the DMI’s >80N data:

2017 is currently occupying the wide open space between the astonishingly low numbers last year and all previous years in DMI’s record. Here’s their graph for 2017 so far:

[Edit – December 10th]

Current Arctic sea ice area and extent derived from the University of Hamburg’s high resolution AMSR2 data:

Plus the latest update on the Chukchi Sea situation:

[Edit – December 20th]

Wipneus has released his mid month PIOMAS update for December:

The Chukchi Sea is now mostly covered in sea ice, as is the Kara Sea. Volume is still 3rd lowest behind 2016 and 2012.

Whilst on the subject of sea ice thickness a related subject is sea ice age. Here’s a new paper on that topic:

“A new tracking algorithm for sea ice age distribution estimation”

Note that these assorted sea ice age maps are all for January 1st 2016!

Watch this space!

Facts About the Arctic in February 2017

February 4, 2017VolumeAMSR2, ASIF, Barrow, DMI, FDD, GFS, Longyearbyen, PIOMAS, Snow Cover, Svalbard, Volume, WipneusJim Hunt

The PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume numbers for January 2017 have just been published. Yet another new record low for the date:

Here’s the PIOMAS gridded thickness for January 31st, courtesy of Wipneus at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

Somewhat anomalously it shows the thickest ice some distance away from the coast of Greenland and/or Ellesmere Island. Here too is Andy Lee Robinson‘s updated PIOMAS “Arctic death spiral”:

Meanwhile yet more anomalously warm air is entering the Arctic Basin from both the Pacific and Atlantic sides:

That sort of thing has happened quite a few times over the 2016/17 freezing season, as you can see from this graph of cumulative Freezing Degree Days (FDD for short):

The FDD graph is based on the same data as the probably much more familiar DMI “Daily mean temperatures for the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel” graph:

Things are warming up in the Arctic once again.

[Edit – February 5th]

Whilst we await the arrival of the forecast anomalous warmth, how are some other metrics coming along? Here’s the high resolution AMSR2 area and extent:

It looks like they’re back in the “normal” range for now, does it not?

[Edit – February 6th]

Things currently still look fairly frosty over on the Pacific side of the Arctic, as you can see from the webcam at Utqiagvik (Barrow as was):

However over on the Atlantic side (and especially for “Richard”!) melting can now be observed on Svalbard:

An extremely powerful cyclone off Greenland is pumping heat and moisture northwards:

Note that the cyclone’s MSLP fell to 940 hPa earlier today. This is the GFS precipitable water forecast for Wednesday lunchtime:

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s the current weather forecast for Longyearbyen in Svalbard:

All in all there’s plenty more heat and moisture on the way.

[Edit – February 13th]

The temperatures in Svalbard have now dropped back below freezing point:

As temperatures over parts of the Arctic Basin have reached zero degrees Celsius and above, Arctic sea ice extent has been declining:

Now take a look at area:

Area has declined a lot! That’s because sea ice concentration is now noticeably <100% across much of the Arctic:

There’s also been a discernable change in slope of the DMI freezing degree days graph:

[Edit – February 19th]

There’s been a late spurt of growth in both area and extent, which are now back in the pack of previous years:

The newly frozen areas are currently still very thin:

Meanwhile northern hemisphere snow cover has started to melt in earnest:

Watch this space!

The 11th Key Science Moment of 2016

December 18, 2016AreaAGU, Andrea Sella, Area, ASIF, CO2, David Attenborough, MSM, Tamsin Edwards, Wipneus, Zack LabeJim Hunt

A brief history of scientific “churnalism” in the age of social media. The “post-truth” of The Guardian’s 11th Key Science Moment of 2016.

On November 7th 2016 we broke this astonishing news on Twitter:

Global #SeaIce area is at an astonishingly low level for the date: https://t.co/uhiBXcY8C8 pic.twitter.com/mCKkTGXYdO

— Snow White (@GreatWhiteCon) November 7, 2016

Nobody noticed! Then on November 16th 2016 Zack Labe did likewise:

This is not normal. Global #seaice area…

(via https://t.co/qwD3k8Ku3h) pic.twitter.com/LppEwpCidm

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) November 16, 2016

The story got some legs. Zack got pushback from some “skeptics” and then the AGU blogged about the story.:

My attention was called to this issue last week thanks to the Twitter feed of Zack Labe, a PhD student in Earth Systems Science at the University of California – Irvine. He makes great graphics showing the latest data on polar climate.

Then he got interviewed by the AGU. The AGU linked back to the graphic graphic in question in the clouds at Google, but there was no mention of our November 6th article or the real source of the story. The Arctic Sea Ice Forum (ASIF for short).

It’s now December 18th, and as far as I’m aware that remains the case in the mainstream media (MSM for short). The Arctic Sea Ice Forum grew out the earlier Arctic Sea Ice Blog (ASIB for short). The proprietor of both the ASIB and ASIF has been revealed by CBC to be one Neven Curlin. They recently interviewed Neven, and even gave him top billing above Sir David Attenborough in the resulting podcast:

‘Like watching a train wreck’: Blogger quits writing about climate change

However the title of the CBC article is inaccurate, as CBC would surely have noticed if they’d read Neven’s article on the ASIB on the topic of his “sabbatical”.

Sabbatical (I hope)

Now comes news that the “astonishingly low level” of global sea ice area that we brought to the waiting world’s attention on November 7th has today been chosen by The Guardian as one of their:

12 key science moments of 2016

The story outlined above and the associated graphic graphic are conspicuous only by their absence, but the Grauniad have thoughtfully provided this pretty stock photo of some sea ice:

Scroll down the Guardian’s article to number 11, pausing to read Tamsin Edwards’ section on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at number 9 on the way down (unlike CO₂ concentrations). There you will discover Professor Andrea Sella’s opinion that:

In October, unprecedented weather patterns drove icy winds across Siberia, pushing Arctic temperatures up to 20C above normal and parts of the Arctic Ocean failed to refreeze; in the Antarctic, sea ice thawed faster than usual. For me the bombshell came from a Dutch blogger in late November: a plot of the Arctic plus Antarctic showed sea ice this autumn to be tracking 4m km2 (the size of western Europe) below the normal average. This is a 7-sigma event – with a chance of about one in a hundred billion of being random. The ice doesn’t lie. If we don’t take this seriously now, our children will ask us why.

The “plot of the Arctic plus Antarctic” Andrea refers to was created by “Wipneus”, who I suppose could reasonably be described as a “Dutch programmer”. Neven could reasonably be described as a blogger, although he is much more than that. Although he was born in The Netherlands he no longer lives there.

Here’s the current state of play:

Are your children asking “Why?” yet?

Should anybody wish to pose that question on Twitter please see:

FYI – We're taking your name in vain! https://t.co/TMW3hsdKOM @guardianscience @flimsin @SellaTheChemist @ZLabe @theAGU #SeaIce #AGU16 pic.twitter.com/1QZGvKhEGR

— Snow White (@GreatWhiteCon) December 18, 2016

Has The Ice Clearly Broken Completely In Two Now?

July 12, 2016ConcentrationACNFS, AMSR2, ASIF, CAB, CIS, Concentration, Kara Sea, Melt PondsJim Hunt

In the spirit of providing some spurious “balance” to the contentious Arctic sea ice “debate” our quote for today comes fairly fresh from the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

idk how people are confusing the gaping fissures that span from Siberia to Canada with melt ponds but it seems like half the people here have blinders on to what is ongoing.

I know HYCOM gets a lot of flak but instead of projecting out, let’s look at the last five days.

[Superfluous image redacted]

The ice has clearly broken completely in two now, and the recent ~970mb low did a major whomping to the ice in the “cleavage” between what’s stuck against Siberia and the main CAB.

Intriguingly this was in response to an informed comment on June 23rd to the effect that:

As we have seen recently, these large area drops in the middle of the pack do not mean the ice is gone, just that its top is wet/ponded. In a couple of days some of these drops might be reversed. Of course the ice has suffered in the meantime, but still it’s risky to simply extrapolate these numbers.

Even more intriguingly our headline for today is remarkably like the inverse of a phrase in a Mail on Sunday article that led us to create this site in the first place!

Nearly three weeks have passed since those “gaping fissures that span from Siberia to Canada” were announced, and you may well (like me) be wondering how they have been coming along? In partial answer to that question here is our very latest video based on the University of Hamburg’s AMSR2 concentration visualisations:

In my own humble opinion this doesn’t really count as a “gaping fissure” but MODIS imagery does now show a fair bit of open water between Siberia and the North Pole:

A “gaping fissure” between the Pole and Canada (and/or Greenland) is however conspicuous only by its absence:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Central Arctic Basin on July 11th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

I do think that I can spot some melt ponds in the area at the moment though. How about you?

The one CRREL/ERDC ice mass balance buoy still reporting reveals that both surface and bottom melting have started at around 83 degrees north:

The 2016 multi-year ice melting season has evidently now begun, and the floe upon which buoy 2015F is sitting still has ~1.9 metres of melting to go. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibilty that a “gaping fissure” from the Atlantic to the Pacific will ultimately emerge this year. However based on the evidence thus far I’ll be extremely surprised if there is one “from Siberia to Canada”, unless of course you count the Chukchi & Beaufort Seas. That route is already open to intrepid Arctic seafarers, as can be seen at the bottom of the animation above and on the current JAXA/ADS Arctic sea ice surface melt map:

[Edit July 14th 2016]

It seems I was mistaken. According to my flack jacketed informant over at the ASIF:

I have taken lots of flack I will stand by my prediction that we are heading for sub-1M KM2 come September (or early October).

Structurally [the ice] has actually now broken into three pieces, one is attached to the islands N of Siberia/NE of Svalbard, one is near Wrangel/ESS, and the “bulk” is pushed against the CAA/Greenland.

The lower concentrations in CAB are clearly open water and not melt ponds.

I felt compelled to explain to (presumably) him that:

Here’s the NSIDC’s view of those “gaping fissures” of yours:

[Edit July 15th 2016]

“Flak jacket” assures me that:

Despite some faults I think both ARC and GLB are onto the truth. Satellite grabs over the past few days show failure on all three fronts (ATL, PAC, and the Russian side especially), but the Russian side doesn’t present as a solid front (nor does the Beaufort melt), and the leads keep getting absorbed into the slush of the main pack (which is why the ‘slush’ keeps expanding, and why most of the CAB has now evolved into this state). The only solid regions of ice are those bordering the steaming ATL waters as well as some remnants north of the CAA (no coincidence the latter was chosen as ‘evidence’).

“ARC” refers to the US Navy’s Arctic Cap Nowcast/Forecast System. Here’s the ACNFS sea ice thickness “nowcast” from July 13th:

Here’s the July 13th model run sea ice thickness forecast for July 14th:

and here’s an annotated version of the Navy’s sea ice concentration forecast:

Yesterday the Kara Sea didn’t suddenly become covered in sea ice, and today the area of the Central Arctic Basin around 82 N, 135 W looks like this to the MODIS instrument on board the Terra Satellite:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Central Arctic Basin on July 15th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

and like this to the University of Hamburg’s ARTIST sea ice concentration algorithm:

whilst here’s the latest Canadian Ice Service RadarSat mosaic for the Western Arctic:

http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/cgi-bin/getprod.pl?prodid=IPYMMR1WA&wrap=0&lang=en — Canadian Ice Service Western Arctic RadarSat mosaic for 8-11 July 2016

Ice mass balance buoy 2015F reports this morning:

Current Buoy Data (07/15/2016):
Pos: 82.89 N, 137.34 W
Air Temp: -0.76 C
Air Pres: 1011.16 mb
Ice thickness : 185 cm

[Edit July 16th 2016]

The Arctic Sea Ice Forum management have banished “Flack Jacket” to the sin bin for a month.

I’m fed up with the personal insults because a model that has a history of errors is showing something spectacular that no other data source does. Come back in a month if you still feel like it.

Meanwhile in answer to my enquiry on the HYCOM support forum Alan Wallcraft tells me:

We now use the National Ice Center’s IMS sea ice extent product in our assimiltion, see http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/. This is manually produced every day, and generally avoids the artifacts and deficiencies of satellite sea ice concentrations. However yesterdays IMS fields were not good, and that is where the spurious sea ice came from. Today’s IMS field is good, and we may rerun the 2016/07/13-18Z nowcast/forecast to clear this up.

After a brief “pause” ACNFS is back in action, and here is its latest Arctic sea ice concentration “nowcast”:

Yesterday the skies were clear once again over the corner of the Arctic where buoy 2015F is located:

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Central Arctic Basin on July 15th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

Here’s how the sea ice area in the Central Arctic Basin has been faring recently:

[Edit July 19th 2016]

Here’s an early image of the North Pole from the Aqua satellite this morning, recorded for posterity in case it changes later:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole on July 19th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite — NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the North Pole at 09:00 UTC on July 19th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

and as the recent Arctic storm heads towards the Canadian Arctic Archipelago here’s the latest Hamburg AMSR2 concentration map:

I now also have an answer to my “supplementary question” on the HYCOM support forum:

I attach the ACNFS plot you referenced and the corresponding plot from our next global real-time system (GOFS 3.1), which will likely replace our current global analysis (and ACNFS) once NAVGEM 1.4 is operational (it is running here with NAVGEM 1.3, like ACNFS). They assimilate the same observations, but ACNFS only does so near the ice edge while GOFS 3.1 assimilates sea ice concentration everywhere (but with higher error bounds in the ice interior). The reason for ACNFS only assimilating near the edge is in part due to that being the most important area for navigation but also because SSMI satelite ice concentrations tend to “over saturate” in the summer. We switched GOFS 3.1 to “believe” the observations because they are generally better in recent years.

The two are quite different in the interior of the sea ice and GOFS 3.1 is certainly better there. We did not see the low concentrations near the North Pole in ACNFS this time last year, so something has happened to make the free running model produce low concentrations this summer. We are looking into it.

071800_927_arcticicen.001″ width=”754″ height=”666″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-4361″ />

“Steve Goddard” Busted

April 24, 2016Ice AgeAge, ASIF, BBC, GWPFAAA, James Delingpole, NSIDC, Paul Homewood, Roger Harrabin, Shock News, Steven Goddard, Tony Heller, VideosJim Hunt

Our headline today is inspired by Tony Heller, probably still better known by his nom de guerre “Steven Goddard”, who excitedly tells the world:

NSIDC Busted!

Reader Chris71 has discovered the smoking gun on the NSIDC web site. Read on.

A few weeks ago, NSIDC put out this press release, claiming that 5+ year old ice is at its smallest level on record.

The press release included the map below. This is a new style map which they just started in week 39 2015. The map below is for week 41 2015. All of their previous 1984-2015 maps have been deleted from their archive.

The good news is that Chris found one of their old style maps which had not been scrubbed from their website. NSIDC has deleted the original graphs, but seem to have forgotten to get rid of the copy.

For some strange reason “Steve” neglects to mention this text that accompanied the “old style map” he so proudly displays:

Here are some graphs from the Arctic – automatically saved here, and some of them archived Enjoy! Fred aka DungeonMaster on http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/.

Have I got news for Chris and “Steve”? Indeed I have! If one were to bother to go to the relevant section of the NSIDC web site instead of inventing bizzare fairy tales one would be able to read this:

EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 3

This data set provides weekly estimates of sea ice age for the Arctic Ocean from remotely sensed sea ice motion and sea ice extent.

The input ice motion data used for this data set is now derived from NSIDC-0116 Version 3 data.

Checking out the detailed information provided about the NSIDC-0116 Polar Pathfinder Daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors, Version 3 would also reveal:

Version 3 – February 2016.

Eliminated unrealistic AVHRR and IABP buoy velocities
Extended buoy ice motion estimates to the present
Improved browse images
Reprocessed SSMI fields using GDAL map transformations on the DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS
Daily Polar Gridded Brightness Temperatures Data Set, NSIDC-0001.
Used Ice concentration estimates greater than 15 percent from the Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Passive Microwave Data Set, NSIDC-0051, to indicate where ice extent is present.

Checking out the detailed information provided about the NSIDC-0611 EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 3 would further reveal:

The sea ice age data in these files are derived using data from satellite passive microwave instruments, drifting buoys, and a weather model. With these data sources, the formation, movement, and disappearance of sea ice can be observed; and these observations can, in turn, be used to estimate ice age (Maslanik et al. 2007). The ice age data are derived from a number of passive microwave imagers: the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I), and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS). Visible and infrared data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) were also utilized through 2004. In addition, International Arctic Buoy Program (IABP) drifting-buoy vectors and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Reanalysis Project (CDAS) are used to augment the satellite data (Tschudi 2010).

Version 3 – April 2016.

So there you have it “Steve”. Thanks to the sterling (albeit uncredited!) efforts of the all volunteer members of the Arctic Sea Ice Forum and the (presumably still paid?) scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center you can now explain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of the matter to your own loyal readers.

A few weeks ago the NSIDC upgraded their sea ice age product from version 2 to version 3. Here’s what the latest version of 1984 week 41 looks like:

Can you spot the difference Tony?

[Edit – May 1st 2016]

In partial answer to a question posed below, here’s an animation of Arctic sea ice age from September 2010 to May 2015. Can you see what has happened to the old ice Tony?

Original Arctic sea ice age images from: Tschudi, M., C. Fowler, J. Maslanik, J. S. Stewart, and W. Meier. 2016. EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/PFSVFZA9Y85G.

[Edit – May 30th 2016]

Here’s a “Storified” summary of my Twitter “debate” with Tony Heller and Patrick Moore:

The Beaufort Gyre Goes Into Overdrive

April 14, 2016ConcentrationACNFS, AMSR2, ASIB, ASIF, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Concentration, GAA 2016, MeteoCiel, MODISJim Hunt

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, the Beaufort Gyre is:

A clockwise circulation (looking from above the North Pole) in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. This circulation results from an average high-pressure system that spawns winds over the region.

Such a high pressure system has been in place over the Arctic Ocean for a few days now, and the effect of the clockwise circulation on the sea ice in the Beaufort Sea is already evident in these recent satellite images:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on April 9th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

NASA Worldview “false-color” image of the Beaufort Sea on April 12th 2016, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite

as well as in this animation of sea ice movement since February:

The high pressure is forecast to continue for several more days. Here’s the GFS forecast for April 20th, courtesy of MeteoCiel:

Northern Hemisphere surface pressure forecast for April 20th 2016

which shows a large system with a central pressure of 1040 hPa still sitting over the Northern Beaufort Sea. Next here’s an animation from the US Navy which forecasts ice thickness until April 19th:

April 13th 2016 ACNFS Beaufort Sea thickness forecast until April 19th

Note in particular the large area of open water forecast to be produced in the Chukchi sea off Barrow, Alaska by the end of the period. The continuing clockwise winds have already started reducing the area of sea ice in the Beaufort Sea at an unusually early date:

Amongst other things we’ll be keeping a close eye on the ice area in the Chukchi Sea over the next few days. The sun is already starting to bathe that area of our planet with its rays, and open ocean soaks up that heat much more readily than bright white ice.

[Edit – 16/04/2016]

Here’s an animation of the effect on sea ice of the Beaufort Gyre in overdrive from Neven at the Arctic Sea Ice Blog:

Notice how towards the end of the animation another huge part of the ice pack, north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is pulled into the Gyre. This is mostly multi-year ice.

Here also is a MODIS image of the Beaufort Sea processed by A-Team at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum to highlight the areas of new ice:

New Calving of the Zachariae Isstrom Glacier

November 17, 2015GlaciersAqua, ASIF, Eric Rignot, ESA, Espen Olsen, Greenland, Jeremie Mouginot, Landsat, MODIS, NASA, Sentinel, Wipneus, Worldview, Zachariae IsstromJim Hunt

The Zachariæ Isstrøm glacier in North East Greenland is in the news at the moment. Here’s a recent article from The Guardian for example, which states that:

A major glacier in Greenland that holds enough water to raise global sea levels by half a metre has begun to crumble into the North Atlantic Ocean, scientists say. The calving of the glacier into chunks of floating ice will set in train a rise in sea levels that will continue for decades to come, the US team warns.

“Even if we have some really cool years ahead, we think the glacier is now unstable,” said Jeremie Mouginot at the University of California, Irvine. “Now this has started, it will continue until it retreats to a ridge about 30km back which could stabilise it and perhaps slow that retreat down.”

Mouginot and his colleagues drew on 40 years of satellite data and aerial surveys to show that the enormous Zachariae Isstrom glacier began to recede three times faster from 2012, with its retreat speeding up by 125 metres per year every year until the most recent measurements in 2015.

The same records revealed that from 2002 to 2014 the area of the glacier’s floating shelf shrank by a massive 95%, according to a report in the journal Science. The glacier has now become detached from a stabilising sill and is losing ice at a rate of 4.5bn tonnes a year.

Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, said that the glacier was “being hit from above and below”, with rising air temperatures driving melting at the top of the glacier, and its underside being eroded away by ocean currents that are warmer now than in the past.

“The glacier is now breaking into bits and pieces and retreating into deeper ground,” he said. The rapid retreat is expected to continue for 20 to 30 more years, until the glacier reaches another natural ledge that slows it down.

The Guardian article includes a picture of Zachariæ Isstrøm, along with much of the rest of North East Greenland. Here it is again, together with a helpful annotation revealing the location of the calving face of Zachariæ Isstrøm in amongst all the snow and ice:

That’s still not really much help when it comes to visualising the “retreat speeding up by 125 metres per year”, so here’s a closer look at Zachariae Isstrom using an image prepared by Espen Olsen for the Arctic Sea Ice Forum, which is based on a Landsat 8 satellite image from September 2014:

Retreat of the calving face of the Zachariae Isstrøm glacier between 2009 and 2015

North East Greenland is in the dark at the moment, but if you want to take a closer look at recent changes to Zachariæ Isstrøm for yourself you can do so with the aid of NASA’s EOSDIS Worldview web site, which allows you to scroll through images from both the Aqua and Terra satellites. Here’s one from August 26th 2015:

NASA Worldview “true-color” image of the Zachariae Isstrøm glacier on August 26th 2015, derived from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua satellite

Our headline for today announces that yet another large chunk of ice has just detached itself from Zachariæ Isstrøm. You may wonder how we can be so sure of that when it’s dark in North East Greenland? That’s because yet another satellite can “see” in the dark, using synthetic aperture radar. Here’s an animation prepared earlier today by “Wipneus” using data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 1A satellite, once again for the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

Animated comparison of Sentinel 1A visualisations of the Zachariae Isstrøm calving face on 4th and 16th November 2015

Can you spot “The new iceberg [that] seems to lie on its side”?

The conclusion to all this frantic activity, according to Mouginot, Rignot et al. at least, is that:

The Zachariæ Isstrøm / Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden sector is one of three major marine-based basins in Greenland along with the Jakobshavn Isbræ and Petermann–Humboldt glaciers, each holding a 0.6-m sea-level equivalent. Jakobshavn Isbræ started a rapid retreat (18 km in 2001-2015) following the collapse of its ice shelf and has undergone massive calving events since 2010. The central channel of the Petermann ice shelf lost 250 m of ice in 2002-2010, and the ice front retreated 33 km in 2010-2012. The Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden ice shelf will become vulnerable to break up in the near future if thinning continues. These observations combined suggest that all three major marine-based basins are undergoing significant changes at present. Jakobshavn Isbræ and Zachariæ Isstrøm have already transitioned to tidewater glacier regime, with increased calf-ice production and ice melting by the ocean. The retreat of these marine-based sectors is likely to increase sea-level rise from Greenland for decades to come.