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:
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.
Since a certain “sceptic” has recently been comparing 2024 sea ice extent to “20 years ago”, here’s the current JAXA/ViSHOP extent graph of selected years, including 2004:
The CryoSat-2/SMOS merged Arctic sea ice volume graph finishes on April 15th, but older data is being reanalysed and here is the latest version:
The gap in the near real time data due to the problem with the SMOS satellite during the first half of March has been filled in, but the result doesn’t look very convincing to say the least!
The PIOMAS gridded thickness data for April 2024 is now available. Here’s the end of month volume graph:
It looks as though the 2024 Arctic sea ice melting season has begun. For much greater detail see the 2024 maximum extent thread. However, here’s the latest JAXA Arctic sea ice extent graph:
Here too is an animation of sea ice motion on the Atlantic periphery, showing the effect of the passage of several Arctic cyclones through the area over the past 5 weeks or so:
[Update – March 4th]
My usual start of month processing hasn’t gone according to plan. Thanks to Lars Kaleschke at the Alfred Wegener Institute for the following information:
SMOS went into safe mode on 22 February 2024 at 05:10 UTC for reasons that are still under investigation.
The spacecraft has been back in nominal mode since 25 February 2024 and on 27 February 2024, the MIRAS instrument was switched on and is currently performing well.
The reload of the nominal acquisition planning is underway, and if all science data quality checks are positive, nominal data production and dissemination will resume in the coming days.
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::
Whilst waiting for the all important thickness and volume data to arrive, we’ll start the new year in traditional fashion with a graph of JAXA extent:
The 2023 calendar year finished with this particular extent metric sitting at 15th lowest in the satellite era.
From Niall Dollard on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum comes evidence via the Sentinel 1A satellite that an arch formed in the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island in late December:
Please note the current record low NH snow extent. Matt predicts all that is about to change:
How sure? And in what way "totally different"?
Have you pointed out to Tony yet that the current daily snow cover data you cite utterly negates his recent assertion that "Autumn/Winter snow cover has been increasing for almost 60 years"?
Hot off the Scandinavian virtual printing presses, here is the official December Arctic sea ice extent trend graph from the OSI SAF:
That’s “Steve”/Tony’s current metric du jour. When do you suppose he will bring it to the attention of his horde of regular readers? It’s accompanied by this matching concentration map:
Here too is the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map for December 31st, in a different format to the one usually used here:
[Update – January 3rd]
The December PIOMAS modelled gridded thickness data has been released. The calculated volume is 6th lowest in the satellite era:
Here is the equivalent CS2/SMOS volume graph
Here too is the PIOMAS thickness map for December 31st:
This uses the same Greenland down orientation and 2.5 meter maximum scale value as the CS2/SMOS map above.
The end of 2023 had above average sea ice growth, bringing the daily extent within the interdecile range, the range spanning 90 percent of past sea ice extents for the date. Rapid expansion of ice in the Chukchi and Bering Seas and across Hudson Bay was responsible.
Average Arctic sea ice extent for December 2023 was 12.00 million square kilometers, ninth lowest in the 45-year satellite record . Sea ice extent increased by an average of 87,400 square kilometers per day, markedly faster than the 1981 to 2010 average of 64,100 square kilometers per day.
After a delayed start to the freeze-up in Hudson Bay, sea ice formed quickly from west to east across the bay, leaving only a small area of open ocean near the Belcher Islands at month’s end. In the northern Atlantic, sea ice extent remained below average extent, as has been typical for the past decade.
For December overall, 2023 had the third highest monthly gain in the 45-year record at 2.71 million square kilometers, behind 2006 at 2.85 million square kilometers and 2016 at 2.78 million square kilometers.
Moving on to the “Conditions in context” section:
Warm conditions prevailed over the central Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea regions, as well as over Hudson Bay and much of northern Canada, with air temperatures at the 925 millibar level (around 2,500 feet above sea level) 8 to 9 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average. Elsewhere, relatively cool conditions prevailed, with air temperatures 2 to 4 degrees Celsius below average in southwestern Alaska, easternmost Russia, Scandinavia, and southeast Greenland. Cool conditions in the Bering and southern Chukchi Seas explain the rapid ice growth there. By contrast, the warm conditions over Hudson Bay, continuing since November, explain its delayed start of ice formation there.
The atmospheric circulation pattern for December was marked by low sea level pressure over the Gulf of Alaska and northern Europe and high sea level pressure over central Russia. This pattern led to cold Arctic air flowing across the Chukchi Sea and into the Bering Sea as well as advection of relatively warm air across Canada into the Beaufort Sea:
Here’s a taste, but there’s much more at the dedicated article linked to above:
[Update – January 12th]
A change is as good as a rest, so here’s the AWI “high resolution” AMSR2 Arctic wide sea ice extent graph
It’s currently highest for the date in the AMSR2 era by a significant margin.
Here too is the ice age map for the end of 2023:
[Update – January 19th]
Something seems to have gone wrong with the processing of the mid-month PIOMAS gridded thickness data. For the moment we’ll have to make do with just the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map:
and volume graph:
With the perennial caveat of a probable upward revision when the reanalysed data is released, Arctic sea ice volume is still close to the bottom of the range during the CryoSat-2 era.
In addition especially for Matt, “Steve”/Tony and numerous others of a “skeptical” persuasion, here are the latest Environment & Climate Change Canada snow extent and snow water equivalent graphs for the northern hemisphere:
Last but certainly not least is the Rutgers Global Snow Lab northern hemisphere snow cover anomaly chart for December:
[Update – January 29th]
A winter cyclone is stirring up the far North Atlantic. It’s currently forecast to bottom out later today with a minimum MSLP of 937 hPa:
The storm has been creating a long period swell directed at the ice edge in the Barents Sea. By midnight that swell will be battering the ice in the Fram Strait too:
[Update – January 30th]
According to Environment Canada the cyclone bottomed out with an MSLP of 939 hPa at 12 PM UTC yesterday:
Associated with the storm is a pulse of abnormally warm air reaching to the North Pole and beyond:
Here’s how JAXA extent looks as the big swell arrives:
And here’s the lead enhanced AWI AMSR2 concentration map of the Atlantic periphery:
Let’s see how things change over the next few days.
[Update – January 31st]
Here’s a preliminary look at the effect of the recent Arctic cyclone and other “weather” on the sea ice in the Fram Strait and Barents & Kara Seas:
There is also another cyclone heading for the Barents Sea. This one is forecast to bottom out at 936 hPa at around midnight tonight near the Norwegian coast:
P.S. The cyclone mentioned just above has been named Storm Ingunn by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute:
👀 This swirl of cloud is #StormIngunn – an intense area of low pressure that's still rapidly deepening
😮 Wind gusts of over 120 mph have been reported in the Faroe Islands with the storm now moving towards Norway pic.twitter.com/TNuo52L7MW
As the New Year rapidly approaches Tony Heller is up to his old Arctic tricks yet again. No doubt we’ll get on to many of his hoary old chestnuts in due course, but although I may easily have blinked and missed it he appears to have a new trick up his voluminous sleeve. Providing empirical evidence that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s global warming “predictions” are correct!
Here is a recent extract from “Snow White’s” XTwitter feed:
Here's @TonyClimate demonstrating yet again that either:
1) He has no understanding of all things #Arctic, or
2) He understands well enough, but he pulls the wool over the eyes of his flock of faithful followers:https://t.co/U3tbp2qrOU
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
A new month has arrived, and during January several Arctic sea ice metrics have been drifting towards the bottom of their respective decadal ranges. To begin with here is AWI’s high resolution AMSR2 extent graph, which is currently very close to being lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record:
However that is less the case for area:
Taylor is keen to see the PIOMAS volume data for January, but whilst we wait for the latest Polar Science Center update here is the CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph, which now includes a couple of month’s worth of reanalysed results as well as more recent near real time numbers:
Here too is the start of month CS2/SMOS thickness map:
By way of a change we’ll start the month of May with a closer look at one of the ice mass balance buoys deployed in the Beaufort Sea last Autumn. IMB buoy 569620 was deployed at 78.5 N, 147.0 W on September 3rd 2021, and since then it has drifted to 81.0 N, 147.7 W. Here is the buoy’s record of atmospheric conditions above the ice floe it’s embedded in since then:
Here too is the buoy’s record of the temperature of the ice floe itself, as well as the thickness of the ice and the snow layer covering it:
There’s a few things to note at first glance. The ice floe continued to decrease in thickness into November. It’s thickness then started to increase, but is currently still less than 2 meters. Also the snow depth has gradually been increasing, and (apart from some data glitches!) is now ~38 cm. Finally, for the moment at least, the ice surface temperature has been slowly warming since mid February and is now ~-11 °C.
Returning to more familiar territory, high resolution AMSR2 Arctic sea ice area has taken a bit of a tumble recently:
followed less steeply by extent:
Not unexpectedly, the Pacific periphery is currently leading the decline:
[Edit – May 4th]
The Rutgers Snow Lab has updated its northern hemisphere snow cover bar chart for April 2022:
The May edition of the NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News has also just been published. It summarises April 2022 as follows:
Average Arctic sea ice extent for April 2022 was 14.06 million square kilometers (5.43 million square miles). This was 630,000 square kilometers (243,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average and ranked eleventh lowest in the 44-year satellite record.
Extent declined slowly through the beginning of the month, with only 87,000 square kilometers (33,600 square miles) of ice loss between April 1 and April 10. The decline then proceeded at an average pace for this time of year through the reminder of the month.
During April, temperatures at the 925 mb level (about 2,500 feet above the surface) over the Arctic Ocean were above average. Most areas were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, but in the Beaufort Sea, April temperatures were up to 5 to 6 degrees Celsius (9 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit) above average:
This was accompanied by a strong Beaufort High pressure cell through the month:
The NSIDC’s update also refers to the Chukchi Sea polynya we’ve been keeping an eye on here:
Strong offshore winds over the northwest coast of Alaska led to openings in the ice cover, called polynyas. The first pulse of winds began on March 21. At that time, surface air temperatures were still well below freezing, and the water in the coastal polynya quickly refroze. By April 9, the offshore push of the ice ceased and the polynya iced over completely.
However, starting on April 12, a second round of offshore wind pushed the ice away from the coast, initiating another polynya. Refreezing began anew in the open water areas, but the ice growth was noticeably slower, reflecting the higher surface air temperatures by the end of the month
The NSIDC also updated their graph of sea ice age, on this occasion for the week of March 12th to 18th over the years:
Arctic sea ice news concludes with brief news of the recent death of Canadian Arctic scientist David Barber. CBC News’s obituary for David provides more details:
Family and friends are mourning the loss of the visionary Arctic researcher and University of Manitoba professor David Barber.
Barber, who was a distinguished professor, the founding director of the Centre for Earth Observation Science and associate dean of research in the faculty of environment, earth and resource, passed away on Friday after suffering complications from cardiac arrest.
Barber, 61, is survived by his wife Lucette, three children and two grandchildren.
David Barber (left) pictured with his team on an Arctic expedition. Photo: Julien Barber[Edit – May 9th]
The waters of the Mackenzie River are starting to spread over the fast ice off the delta:
“False colour” image of the Beaufort Sea on May 7th from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite[Edit – May 11th]
The Polar Science Center at the University of Washington has released the PIOMAS volume data for April 2022:
Average Arctic sea ice volume in April 2022 was 23,000 km3. This value is the 9th lowest on record for April, about 2,300 km3 above the record set in 2017. Monthly ice volume was 30% below the maximum in 1979 and 15% below the mean value for 1979-2021. Average April 2022 ice volume was 1.45 standard deviations above the 1979-2021 trend line.
The daily volume numbers reveal the PIOMAS maximum volume for 2022 to be 23,225 km3 on April 26th.
The PSC report continues:
Ice growth anomalies for April 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 April 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 Greenland but a positive anomaly exists north of Baffin Island.
Note that the “positive anomaly north of Baffin Island” referred to is not apparent in the CryoSat 2 ice thickness anomaly map, although there is agreement about the thicker ice in the eastern Beaufort Sea:
[Edit – May 23rd]
CryoSat-2 thickness maps stopped for the Summer in mid April. I’ve been hoping for mid May data from the PIOMAS team, but in vain so far. In its continuing absence here is a “work in progress” PIOMAS thickness map for the end of April:
The sea ice in Chaunskaya Bay and along the adjacent coast of the East Siberian Sea is starting to look distinctly damp:
“False colour” image of the East Siberian Sea on May 23rd from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite
That’s not too surprising when you also look at recent temperatures in Pevek, which have been approaching all time highs for the date:
P.S. The Mackenzie River has reappeared from under the clouds and is now largely liquid:
“False colour” image of the Mackenzie River and Beaufort Sea on May 23rd from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite[Edit – May 27th]
Some surface melt is now visible on the fast ice at Utqiaġvik:
No doubt the recent above zero temperatures are responsible, but the forecast is for colder conditions to return:
Discussion continues on the new open thread for June 2022.
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