September has arrived and it’s time to start speculating about when and at what level this summer’s minimum Arctic sea ice extent will occur. Here’s a helpful summary of previous years’ JAXA AMSR2/AMSR-E extent minima courtesy of Zack Labe:
Here too is JAXA’s current graph of extent, including a selection of previous years:
JAXA extent on August 31st was 4.96 million km2, marginally below last year’s value of 4.99 million km2 on the same date.
After a long hiatus courtesy of the demise of the annual Barneo ice camp and the Covid-19 pandemic we are pleased to be able to report that an ice mass balance buoy has once again been installed on a floe in the vicinity of the North Pole. Here’s the evidence:
The ship in the background is not a traditional research icebreaker. It is Ponant Cruises’ Le Commandant Charcot, one of a number of new ice hardened cruise ships voyaging across the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. Le Commandant Charcot reached 90N on July 13th:
In a press release last week the Alfred Wegener Institute announced that:
From her home port in Bremerhaven, the Polarstern will set course for Fram Strait and the marginal ice zone north of Svalbard, where warm, nutrient-rich Atlantic Water flows into the Arctic Ocean.
The Polarstern starts its voyage to the Arctic from its home port of Bremerhaven. Photo: Nina Machner
Closely monitoring energy and material flows in the marginal ice zone from the ship and from on ice floes is the goal of the team led by Prof Torsten Kanzow, expedition leader and a physical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). “We will make transects from the open water into the dense sea ice and back. Along the way, we will gather a variety of physical, chemical and biological measurements in the marginal ice zone, which is especially productive and therefore especially interesting,” explains Kanzow.
“The team will also venture onto the ice to take a closer look at the thickness and characteristics of the sea ice and measure ocean currents and eddies away from the ship. We’ll also deploy so-called gliders in the ocean, buoys on the ice and moorings on the seafloor, all of which will record valuable data for the next several years. Lastly, we’ll extend our research radius with helicopter flights, during which we’ll observe, for instance, the melt ponds on the ice.”
Following the work in the MIZ north of Svalbard Polarstern will be heading for Northeast Greenland:
The two glaciers there (79 N Glacier and Zachariae Isstrom) are both characterised by ocean-driven ice loss and accelerated ice flows, making them contributors to sea-level rise. “We plan to install moorings in order to gauge the sensitivity of ocean-driven glacier melting to changing environmental conditions,” says Kanzow, who’s been pursuing research in the region since 2016. Accompanying geodetic-glaciological studies will be conducted on Greenland. On the one hand, they will assess how the solid ground is rising on extremely small scales, because it is still rebounding from the past weight of ice masses that melted after the last glacial maximum. On the other, they will explore temporal variations in supraglacial lakes; their drainage out to sea can have considerable effects on glacier flow speeds and glacier melting.
The AWI team have installed three seasonal ice mass balance buoys in the MIZ, without the usual thermistor string but with a new conductivity, temperature, depth (CTD) sensor fitted to measure salinity instead. Less colourful than usual sea ice thickness graphs can be viewed on the 2022 ice mass balance buoy page. Here’s one example:
[Edit – July 25th]
The image above updates on a daily basis, but today’s version is worth preserving for posterity:
There is currently a large area of low concentration sea ice around the North Pole, and Polarstern has left its station in the marginal ice zone and is currently heading north of Greenland rather than in the direction of the 79N/ZI glaciers.
Polarstern has been heading even further north to the Aurora Vent field (about 130 nautical miles northwest). As part of an extensive lithospheric study, ocean bottom seismometers will be deployed at depths of more than 4000 meters to record seismological activity as well as the physical properties of the hydrothermal plume.
Polarstern north east of Greenland – Photo: Christian R. Rohleder
Polarstern is now heading south again, where a team from the Technical University of Dresden will be deploying a modified surfboard on supra-glacial lakes! Here’s a test run in a melt pond:
Photo: Erik Loebel[Edit – July 29th]
I discovered something rather interesting whilst browsing the Marine Traffic ship tracking web site this morning:
It appears as if the AWI have recently installed two buoys that support AIS position reporting, as indeed does Polarstern itself:
[Edit – August 6th]
Polarstern is now approaching the 79 N and Zachariae Isstrom glaciers:
After a quiet couple of years due to the Covid-19 pandemic there are numerous cruises through the Northwest Passage planned for the summer of 2022. Some (very!) small vessels are also currently scheduled to attempt that perilous journey. First of all let’s take a look at a map of the assorted routes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago:
plus another map which includes a few more place names:
Next comes news of the expeditions planned by a variety of intrepid adventurers. According to Karl Kruger’s web site :
In 2022, Karl will attempt to become the first human to paddle 1,900 miles of the Northwest Passage on a standup paddleboard.
The article at the link is undated, but suggests that Karl initially intended to set off for Pond Inlet from Tuktoyaktuk in July 2019, but postponed the trip until the summer of 2020. By then Covid restrictions were in place, so next month provides the first opportunity for him to attempt the journey once again.
May 2022 proved to be fairly uneventful in the Arctic. High resolution AMSR2 Arctic sea ice extent has remained towards the top of the recent pack:
However Arctic sea ice area has been declining more quickly recently, and compaction is now lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record:
The clouds over the Lena Delta have thinned, to reveal melt water beginning to spread across the fast ice in the Laptev Sea:
“False colour” image of the Lena Delta on June 2nd from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite
The clouds have also cleared over the North Pole, to reveal a network of leads:
“False colour” image of the North Pole on June 2nd from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite
The Alfred Wegener Institute have recently released the reanalysed CryoSat-2/SMOS sea ice thickness data for mid April:
We now anxiously await the PIOMAS modelled thickness data for May. Meanwhile the AWI data suggest that the thickest ice in the Central Arctic Basin is currently to be found north of Axel Heiberg Island, with the thin ice in the Laptev Sea ripe for further extent reductions:
[Edit – June 5th]
Large areas of the fast ice in the Laptev Sea are now showing evidence of surface melt:
“False colour” image of the Laptev Sea on June 5th from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite
The JAXA ViSHOP web site is still down, so here are the latest “high resolution” AMSR2 numbers for June 4th:
Extent: 10.60 million square kilometers, Area: 9.77 million square kilometers
[Edit – June 9th]
The June edition of the NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News summarises May 2022 as follows:
Average Arctic sea ice extent for May 2022 was 12.88 million square kilometers (4.97 million square miles). This was 410,000 square kilometers (158,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average, yet it was the highest May extent since 2013.
As was the case for April, sea ice extent was slow to decline, losing only 1.28 million square kilometers (494,000 square miles) during the month.
Within the Arctic Ocean, air temperatures at the 925 mb level (about 2,500 feet above the surface) were near average over most of the region in May, and 1 to 5 degrees Celsius (2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1981 to 2010 average along the coast of the Kara and East Siberian Seas, the East Greenland Sea, and the Canadian Archipelago:
Areas where openings formed within the ice cover were dominated by off-shore ice motion, pushing ice poleward as well as toward Fram Strait. This offshore ice motion is largely driven by a pattern of low sea level pressure over Eurasia coupled with high pressure over the Pacific sector of the Arctic:
[Edit – June 12th]
The Polar Science Center at the University of Washington has released the PIOMAS volume data for May 2022:
Average Arctic sea ice volume in May 2022 was 22,000 km3. This value is the 11th lowest on record for May, about 2,100 km3 above the record set in 2017. Monthly ice volume was 39% below the maximum in 1979 and 24% below the mean value for 1979-2021. Average May 2022 ice volume was 1.5 standard deviations above the 1979-2021 trend line.
Ice growth anomalies for May 2022 continued to be at the upper end of the most recent decade (Fig 4) with a mean ice thickness (above 15 cm thickness) at the middle of recent values.
The ice thickness anomaly map for May 2022 relative to 2011-2020 continues the previous months pattern that divides the Arctic in two halves with positive anomalies in the “Western Arctic” , a strong positive anomaly in the Eastern Beaufort but negative anomalies in “Eastern Arctic”.
The development of a positive ice thickness anomaly in the Eastern Beaufort appears to be related to anomalous sea ice drift during February that transported ice along the Canadian Coast into the Beaufort. Positive anomalies in the Greenland and Barents Seas seem to be associated with higher than normal sea ice extent in those areas.
The Terra satellite has a nice clear view of the “Eastern Arctic” this morning, revealing widespread surface melt and continuing break up of the ice in the Laptev Sea:
“False colour” image of the Laptev and East Siberian Seas on June 12th from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite[Edit – June 16th]
Bottom melt has begun on two ice mass balance buoys originally deployed in the Beaufort Sea last autumn.
Here’s the mid June PIOMAS Arctic sea ice thickness map:
It shows hardly any ice thicker than 2 meters across the entire eastern half of the Arctic Ocean.
[Edit – June 25th]
The snow cover has gone and ice surface melt has begun in the northern Beaufort Sea, where IMB buoy 551610 is currently located at 78.34 N, 130.76 W:
It also looks as though there has recently been preferential solar heating and hence melting around the body of the buoy, as shown in this illustration:
[Edit – June 26th]
A low pressure area has formed over the East Siberian Sea. According to the Canadian Meteorological Centre‘s analysis the central mean surface level pressure had reached 982 hPa by midnight last night:
The CMC’s GEM forecast model suggests that it will bottom out at 974 hPa later this evening UTC and then persist for several days:
[Edit – June 28th]
The June 2022 Sea Ice Outlook has now been published, a few days behind schedule. Neil provides a summary below, but here’s the traditional chart of predictions:
Here’s a bit more detail on the Pan-Arctic sea-ice forecast:
This year’s median forecasted value is 4.57 million square kilometers with quartiles of 4.34 and 4.90 million square kilometers. This is higher than the SIO forecasted value of September sea-ice extent for the past three years (2019–2021), but slightly below the median value of 4.60 million square cited in the 2018 SIO June report. The lowest forecast is 3.41 million square kilometers. Among the four methods that forecast September extent less than four million square kilometers, three are based on dynamical models. Two contributions forecast a record low extent (below 3.57 million square kilometers set in 2012). The highest forecast is 5.20 million square kilometers.
Purely coincidentally the Arctic Sea Ice Forum June poll for NSIDC average extent for September 2022 also had 37 entries. Here are the results:
Meanwhile in the actual Arctic at the end of June 2022 the low over the East Siberian Sea has found its second wind and is deepening once more:
Discussion continues on the new open thread for July 2022.
The April edition of the NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News summarises March 2022 as follows:
Average Arctic sea ice extent for March 2022 was 14.59 million square kilometers (5.63 million square miles), ranking ninth lowest in the satellite record…
The total decline, after a series of small ups and downs, was only 250,000 square kilometers (96,500 square miles):
Counter to what might be expected given the very slow rate of sea ice loss over the month as a whole, air temperatures at the 925 millibar level (about 2,500 feet above the surface) were above average over all of the Arctic Ocean:
March temperatures were up to 9 degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, up to 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in the East Siberian Sea, but up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average over a wide area.
The key features of the sea level pressure pattern were high pressure (an anticyclone) over the central Arctic Ocean, a trough of low pressure extending into the Barents Sea, and an unusually high pressure over Northern Europe:
While having an anticyclone over the central Arctic Ocean is quite typical for this time of year, the combination of the high pressure over northern Europe and the pressure trough to the west led to a strong pressure gradient, leading to strong winds from south through the Norwegian and Barents Seas…
This can be tied to the extreme warm event over the Arctic Ocean seen in the middle of the month, associated with strong water vapor transport and the passage of several strong cyclones.
The Polar Science Center at the University of Washington has also released the PIOMAS volume data for March 2022:
Average Arctic sea ice volume in March 2022 was 21,700 km3. This value is the 6th lowest on record for March, about 2,200 km3 above the record set in 2017. Monthly ice volume was 38% below the maximum in 1979 and 25% below the mean value for 1979-2021:
Ice growth anomalies for March 2022 continued to be at the upper end of the most recent decade with a mean ice thickness (above 15 cm thickness) at the middle of recent values:
The ice thickness anomaly map for March 2022 relative to 2011-2020 divides the Arctic in two halves with positive anomalies in the “Western Arctic” but negative anomalies in “Eastern Arctic”. A narrow band of negative anomalies remains along the coast of North of Greenland but positive anomaly exists north of Baffin Island.
CryoSat 2 ice thickness shows an similar pattern of sea ice thickness anomalies though the areas North of Greenland and Baffin Bay show substantial differences:
[Edit – April 10th]
Here are the latest graphs of our favourite “high resolution” AMSR2 metrics, which combine recent data from the Alfred Wegener Institute with historical data from the University of Hamburg:
As you can see, there have indeed been a few ups and downs! Click the image below to see a 10 Mb animation of ice motion over the last few weeks:
The obvious point to note at the moment is that there are currently long flaw leads on both the Siberian and Canadian sides of the Arctic Ocean. The animation also reveals episodes of open water in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, as well as north of Franz Josef Land and Svalbard.
The ice in those areas is still very thin on the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS sea ice thickness map:
[Edit – April 11th]
Here too is the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph:
The reanalysed data is now showing something of a surge towards the end of February.
[Edit – April 23rd]
Here’s the last “near real time” AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS Arctic sea ice thickness map for Spring 2022:
The significantly thinner areas in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas are even more pronounced than previously. Here also is the associated CS2/SMOS volume graph:
The 2022 maximum volume based on NRT data is 19719 km³ on April 5th. Expect that to be revised upwards when the reanalysed data is ultimately published.
Going back to 2 dimensions, the assorted “ups and downs” now seem to have resolved into the melting season proper:
The peripheral sea have been responsible for most of the recent decline:
However as mentioned above, the Chukchi Sea has been experiencing some ups and downs of its own. Perhaps the sun is now high enough in the sky for the most recent “down” to stick around for the summer?
“True colour” image of the Chukchi Sea on April 21st from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite[Edit – April 24th]
Over the last couple of days some open water has appeared in the Beaufort Sea off the Mackenzie Delta:
“True colour” image of the Beaufort Sea on April 23rd from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite [Edit – April 25th]
Especially for Taylor, here’s the GFS Arctic snow depth forecast for 10 days into the future:
For detailed analysis of Arctic sea ice extent over the next few weeks please see the 2022 maximum extent thread. However to get the new open thread going here is the current JAXA/ViSHOP extent graph:
It’s looking more and more as though the real maximum for 2022 occurred close the false peak on February 23rd.
Arctic sea ice volume will keep increasing for a while longer. Here is the current AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph:
The recent “flat line” in extent is in part due to recent events on the Pacific periphery of the Arctic. Take a look at this animation of AMSR2 sea ice concentration:
The gap varies depending on how the wind blows, but there is still evidence of open water (or very thin ice) along the shore of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Here’s the Mackenzie Delta and the adjacent Beaufort Sea on March 5th:
Here’s the latest graph of Arctic sea ice extent from JAXA/ViSHOP, which looks a bit unusual to say the least:
It certainly caught my eye! Could that sudden peak on February 23rd be the maximum extent for the year? To be frank it looks more like an artifact in the underlying gridded AMSR2 concentration data, but it’s not wholly beyond the bounds of possibility. The Pacific side of the Arctic is anomalously warm at the moment:
and parts of the Bering Sea are above freezing point:
For the moment then the (extremely!) provisional JAXA Arctic sea ice maximum extent for 2022 is 14.39 million km².
By way of an AMSR2 second opinion let’s also take a look at our favourite “high resolution” AMSR2 metrics, which combine recent data from the Alfred Wegener Institute with historical data from the University of Hamburg:
The extent peak on the 23rd is of much smaller magnitude, and it’s almost non existent on the area graph.
Curiouser and curiouser.
[Edit – March 1st]
The JAXA maximum on February 23rd is definitely an artifact of dodgy AMSR2 data. Take a look at the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland in particular:
The University of Hamburg version also shows an anomaly in the Barents Sea:
However the 5 day averaged NSIDC extent graph now shows a significant peak on February 25th:
Is anybody willing to put money on 14.875 million km² just yet?
[Edit – March 7th]
Here are the latest “high resolution” AMSR2 graphs:
The February 23rd maximum holds, for the moment at least.
[Edit – March 11th]
Here’s the latest JAXA Arctic sea ice extent graph:
A late surge is now looking exceedingly unlikely. However given that the maximum seems to have occurred during the brief period of dodgy data around February 23rd, what magnitude and date should be assigned to the 2022 maximum?
Whilst I ponder that thorny problem…
[Edit – March 12th]
Now I’ve really gone and done it! Started the “2022 melting season” thread on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum that is:
Arctic sea ice has likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.88 million square kilometers (5.75 million square miles) on February 25. The 2022 maximum is the tenth lowest in the 44-year satellite record. On the same day, on the other pole, Antarctic sea ice reached a record minimum extent, at 1.92 million square kilometers (741,000 square miles).
The date of the maximum this year, February 25, was fifteen days earlier than the 1981 to 2010 average date of March 12. Only two years had an earlier maximum, 1987 and 1996, both on February 24. This year is the second earliest date on the satellite record, tying with 2015, which also reached its maximum extent on February 25.
Following the “Great Arctic Winter Cyclone” towards the end of January, here are the latest high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs:
The sudden reduction in sea ice area due to the cyclone is very apparent, as is the subsequent refreeze of the affected area. Here’s an animation of AMSR2 concentration revealing more detail:
Here too is the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS Arctic sea ice volume graph:
It doesn’t reveal a similar “blip” towards the end of January, suggesting that reduction in area was due to compaction rather than melt. The current AWI thickness map shows the freshly formed ice north east of Svalbard is still very thin:
The latest thickness anomaly map from the Finnish Meteorological Institute shows that the ice which was exported from the Central Arctic via the Fram Strait is nevertheless still anomalously thin, although there is now an area of thicker ice north of Greenland:
2021 has been and gone, so first of all may I wish all our readers a very Happy New Year.
Sadly it’s not been a happy start to 2022 for the inhabitants of Boulder, Colorado, home of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. According to the Denver Post:
The Marshall fire destroyed an estimated 991 homes in Boulder County, damaged 127 more and may have killed three people, Sheriff Joe Pelle said Saturday afternoon.
Pelle added that the cause of the fire — the most damaging in Colorado history — remains under investigation, and confirmed that sheriff’s officials have served a search warrant on at least one property based on a tip.
Currently, two people are missing in Superior and another is missing in the Marshall area, Pelle said. All three are feared dead as each of their homes was lost to the fire, the sheriff said…
So far, officials say Thursday’s wildfire — exacerbated by 100-mph winds — burned more than 6,000 acres across Boulder County.
The fire destroyed 553 homes in Louisville, damaging 45, Pelle said Saturday. It also destroyed 332 homes in Superior, damaging 60 in that town, and destroyed 106 homes in unincorporated Boulder County, damaging 22…
Moving north to examine snow and ice data from the Arctic, let’s start 2022 in traditional fashion with a look at high resolution AMSR2 area and extent:
Both metrics are now near the upper boundary of the last 10 years’ range. The AMSR2 instrument wasn’t launched into orbit until summer 2012, but according to both JAXA and NSIDC data extent on January 1st 2022 is almost identical to the same date in 2012. Regular readers will recall that year went on to produce the lowest annual minimum extent in the satellite era despite recording the highest annual maximum in the decade of the 2010s:
Note that sea ice volume tells a rather different story. Here’s the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph:
The current near real time data is likely to be revised upwards slightly when the final reanalysis is complete, but even so volume seems likely to remain in the lower half of the recent range at the end of 2021.
Once again the ice in the so called “last ice area” north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island is thinner than usual, as is the ice in the Fram Strait and East Greenland Sea.
[Edit – January 11th]
As has been pointed out below, the Polar Science Center has now released the PIOMAS volume data for December 2021:
Average Arctic sea ice volume in December 2021 was 13,300 km3. This value is the 9th lowest on record for December, about 2100 km3 above the record set in 2016. Monthly ice volume was 51% below the maximum in 1979 and 37% below the mean value for 1979-2020. Average December 2021 ice volume was 1.2 standard deviations above the 1979-2020 trend line.
November and December of 2021 saw relative rapid ice growth for recent years, bringing the mean ice thickness (above 15 cm thickness) towards the thicker end of the recent values.
The ice thickness anomaly map for December 2021 relative to 2011-2020 continues to show anomalies divided into positive and a negative halves with areas of positive anomalies increasing since the two prior months and stretching from the Beaufort, over the pole and into the Barents. Negative anomalies stretching from Fram Strait, North of Greenland and along the Canadian Archipelago. Areas North of Greenland again feature low ice thickness as in prior years.
Note that as revealed by this animation from NASA Worldview the sea ice in the Lincoln Sea is currently still breaking up and being exported from the Central Arctic via the Nares Strait:
[Edit – January 25th]
The Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean has been taking a bit of a battering from what I shall henceforth refer to as the Great Arctic Winter Cyclone of 2022, or GAWC 2022 for short. Unless there’s an even deeper one later in the year of course!
According to the Canadian Meteorological Centre the storm achieved a minimum Mean Sea Level Pressure of 937 hPa at 12 noon UTC yesterday:
Here are the visible effects of the storm on the sea ice in the area so far, now updated to January 25th:
Watch this space!
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