Tag Archives: AWI

Where’s the Thickest Arctic Sea Ice Gone?

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In the absence of the usual mid month PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume update I’m being moaned at by “angech” over on Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog:

Any ideas on why PIOMAS mid month update not out, other than not wanting to show a big recovery?

Unlike any of Judy’s denizens I checked out the comparatively new merged CryoSat-2 plus SMOS thickness maps from the Alfred Wegener Institute. “Measured” rather than “modelled” data must be a good thing surely?

Just in case there’s some significant difference between the “reanalysis” and “operational” versions of that product, here is the AWI’s most recent reanalysed Arctic sea ice thickness map, for the week ending January 11th:

together with the same date from the previous two years:

Make sure to take a close look at the white areas north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago showing sea ice over 4 metres thick.

Over the winter of 2018/19 ASCAT revealed that there was a relentless movement of multi-year ice towards both the North Atlantic and the Beaufort Sea.

Not unexpectedly that meant that ice in the northern Barents Sea was slow to melt out in the summer of 2019:

whilst after a fast start the melt in the Beaufort Sea also suffered a “brief hiatus” in June before ultimately melting out almost completely as well:

Perhaps a significant amount of the multi-year ice that survived the winter of 2018/19 has now simply melted away in warm water, to be replaced by much less robust first year ice in the area between the North Pole and the Siberian coast? It will be very interesting to see what the next PIOMAS update in early February reveals.

[Edit – February 4th]

The next PIOMAS update referred to above has now arrived. Here’s the Polar Science Center’s graph:

Over on Climate Etc. angech is already exclaiming:

Strange it did go up a fair bit the old PIOMAS.
No publicity at the usual going down sites.

Actually it’s not at all strange, because thus far this winter the polar vortex has been remarkably well behaved. By and large cold air air has stayed in the Arctic. There hasn’t been much in the way of cold air intrusions into mid latitudes or warm air intrusions into the Arctic.

Hence it’s not at all surprising that the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic has been increasing slightly more quickly this winter than in other recent years. By way of some longer term context, here are the official Polar Science Center min/max trends:

[Edit – February 4th PM]

Wipneus has just released the January PIOMAS gridded thickness map. Here it is:

[Edit – February 5th]

As is all too frequently the case, AdR and other commenters below get very excited about trivial increases in sea ice extent without considering snow extent. One side effect of the lack of cold air outbreaks into mid latitudes so far this winter currently looks like this:

[Edit – February 6th]

The AWI and PIOMAS sea ice thickness maps above look somewhat different at first glance. That being the case, I’ve written a program to crunch the AWI numbers. Here’s the result:

The source code plus raw and processed data can be accessed via the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

“CryoSat-2/SMOS Arctic Sea Ice Volume”

[Edit – February 10th]

Further support for my “polar vortex” theory, from Judah Cohen no less!

[Edit – February 16th]

Here’s the latest update of our novel NRT volume metric:

Please note that there is a known problem with the NRT data from January 31st onwards.

Here too are Wipneus’ latest high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs:

[Edit – February 18th]

Wipneus has released his usual mid month PIOMAS update on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

I am forced to ponder once again why the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness “measured” numbers just above seem to be more at variance with PIOMAS in 2020 than in previous years:

[Edit – February 22nd]

Here’s another weekly NRT volume update:

This time I’ve left off the NRT data from February 6th onwards, since the “issue” referred to above obviously hasn’t been solved yet. As an added bonus here’s a graph showing the trends (or lack thereof) on 3 dates during the October to April freezing season:

The MOSAiC Expedition

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According to the MOSAiC Expedition’s web site:

In September 2019, the German research icebreaker Polarstern will set sail from Tromsø, Norway, to spend a year drifting through the Arctic Ocean – trapped in ice. The goal of the MOSAiC expedition is to take the closest look ever at the Arctic as the epicenter of global warming and to gain fundamental insights that are key to better understand global climate change.

In essence Polarstern will be following in the illustrious footsteps of Tara and Fridtjof Nansen‘s Fram before her, but with vastly more scientists in attendance than previous transpolar drift expeditions.

Hundreds of researchers from 19 countries take part in this exceptional endeavour. The MOSAiC expedition will bring a modern research icebreaker close to the north pole for a full year including for the first time in polar winter. The data gathered will be used by scientists around the globe to take climate research to a completely new level.

The expedition also bears a lot of resemblance to the more recent Norwegian Young Sea ICE Expedition, during  which R/V Lance drifted embedded in winter sea ice, albeit nearer the North Atlantic.

The countdown to “the largest polar expedition in history” has begun:

Here’s an infographic to help explain what happens next:

[Edit – September 20th]

The moment has arrived. The countdown is complete and the MOSAiC expedition begins today. According to the expedition web site:

After a decade of preparations, it’s finally time: this evening at 8:30 p.m. the German icebreaker Polarstern will depart from the Norwegian port of Tromsø. Escorted by the Russian icebreaker Akademik Fedorov, she will set sail for the Central Arctic. On board researchers will investigate a region that is virtually inaccessible in winter, and which is crucial for the global climate. They will gather urgently needed data on the interactions between the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice, as well as on the ecosystem. Thanks to the collaboration between international experts, the one-year-long ice drift past the North Pole will take climate research to a completely new level.

At the launch of MOSAiC Markus Rex, Head of the expedition from the Alfred Wegener Institute said that:

This mission is ground breaking. Never before has there been such a complex Arctic expedition.  For the first time we will be able to measure the climate processes in the Central Arctic in winter. And so for the first time we will be able to understand this region and correctly represent it in climate models. The Arctic is the epicentre of global warming and has already undergone dramatic changes. And it is the weather kitchen for our weather in Europe. Extreme weather conditions like outbreaks of cold Arctic air here in winter, or heat waves in summer are linked to the changes in the Arctic. At the same time, the uncertainties in our climate models are nowhere bigger than in the Arctic. There aren’t any reliable prognoses of how the Arctic climate will develop further or what that will mean for our weather. Our mission is to change that.

Here’s the Alfred Wegener Institute’s 3 hour plus recording of the send off for Polarstern and Akademik Federov from Tromsø:

Here too are some alternative sources of information about the expedition:

BBC – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49760460

Guardian –  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/20/climate-scientists-prepare-largest-ever-arctic-expedition

New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/climate/mosaic-expedition-arctic.html

[Edit – September 29th]

Polarstern is now within the initial target area, and is looking for a suitable ice floe to  which she can attach herself:

[Edit – October 2nd]

Polarstern and Akademik Fedorov are still searching for a suitable sea ice floe:

[Edit – October 4th]

According to an article by Janek Uin  from Brookhaven National Laboratory on the United States’ Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement web site:

We finally found the piece of ice that will be the home for Polarstern for the next year. It’s a floe a few kilometers in diameter and with thickness ranging from half a meter to a few meters. Several ice floes were surveyed via helicopters from both icebreakers and by teams of scientists taking measurements on ice before a decision to pick this one was made. Now the two icebreakers are tied together as equipment, fuel, and people are transferred between the ships in preparation for deployment. While it’s exciting to see many new faces on Polarstern, we also had to say goodbye to some of the friends we had made on our way here.

There was also a lot of excitement today as two polar bears—a mom with her cub—wandered very close to Polarstern. Everybody who could rushed to the deck to try to capture photos of them in the diminishing daylight.

[Edit – October 7th]

Via the MOSAiC Expedition Twitter feed:

Watch this space!

Could Northabout Circumnavigate Greenland in 2018?

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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:

Nord-Aqua-721-2018-08-19

Kap-Morris-Jesup-Terra-2018-08-19

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

Polarstern-2018-08-19-2200

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

Lincoln-Terra-2018-08-19

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:

SMOS-Zoom-20180822

 

[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:

S1B_MorrisJesup_20180825T1700

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”:

S1B_WardHunt_20180824T1442