By Steven Goddard,
In order to better visualize what is happening in the Arctic this summer, I generated an animation of satellite photos over the area of open water west of Barrow, AK. It reveals a very dynamic ice edge – with the ice moving as it is blown around by winds associated with the Beaufort Gyre.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/mag/2010/mag_2010062200.gif
The region of ice in the video is shown in blue below.
Here is what I see.
- The ice edge is moving left to right about 10 miles per day.
- Ice is being torn off the main ice sheet north of Barrow.
- A large chunk of ice in the center of the open water (on June 18) moves northwest, crashes into the main mass of ice, and disintegrates.
- Little evidence of melting.
- The landfast ice is not showing any changes.
- Lakes are still frozen solid.
What do you see?
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Julienne, how can a layman keep an eye on that Arctic Dipole Pattern? Do you have any links?
EFS_Junior
If you had actually read my articles, you would know that I am calculating only the region of interest shown in the maps in those articles – correlates to approximately the maximum September extent in the NSIDC record. You would also know that I zoom the ROI before counting.
My PIPS calculations are quite accurate, thank you.
If your pixels-metrea volume numbers are based on the original pixel sized images, than your volume numbers are indeed wrong.
If not, than have the original images been resampled to a different higher resolution?
Oh, sorry, forgot to ask what does ROI stand for in it’s current context, 8-bit GIF inages.
EFS_Junior
What part of “You would also know that I zoom the ROI before counting.” wasn’t clear?
Günther Kirschbaum says:
June 26, 2010 at 4:08 am
So I think this DA will be important to watch,
Julienne, how can a layman keep an eye on that Arctic Dipole Pattern? Do you have any links?
Gunther, I use NCEPs online analysis web site: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/
which allows you to input your time-period you want to look at (day of the month, year), the region you want to look at (I chose “custom” and then Northern Hemisphere Polar Stereographic for 60-90N and 0-360E). You can chose the variable (i.e. SLP) and look at means or anomalies. For the DA you can see the mean SLP field that shows the Dipole, but the strength of the SLP anomalies is more indicative of the DA pattern. There are many other variables you can look at such as air temperature at different levels in the atmosphere, meridional wind, SST, etc.)
Julienne says:
June 25, 2010 at 10:26 pm
R. Gates says:
June 25, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Yes it’s important to find out what the SSTs and currents are doing this year. The Dipole Anomaly of 2007 did strengthen inflow of the warm Pacific water which no doubt played an important role that year.
_________________
Thanks for your response. I know that funding is always difficult, but considering the impact on melt in the Arctic, it would seem to me that a series of permanent bouys that monitor the WSC and Bering Strait heat flux inflows would be an excellent investment, or perhaps these already exist, but I don’t know where to find the data? Recent studies done by Weslawski et. al. on the WSC would seem to have been done via ship board measurements, rather than permanent bouys. Also, in terms of the sea ice volume, I would love to see some data that shows how smooth the ice is underneath and across the central Arctic basin. Though I’m not an expert such as yourself, I thought I had read somwhere that a great deal of the mass/volume of sea ice can be found in the fins from pressure ridges. If the “rotten” ice is overall smoother on the bottom or has less deep fins from pressure ridging, than this might account for a great deal of the volume loss, and might lead to quicker melting. I would presume this has never been studied, but perhaps you know differently?
EFS_Junior said June 26, 2010 at 5:44 am:
It’s easy enough to find where it’s discussed, just takes some advanced computer skills. First you have to access Google search, then look for “wuwt goddard region of interest arctic pips” to find it. When I just did it, the info was in the first two results.
One thing is for certain, Goddard’s Arctic posts must really be popular. Every other result on that first page is from a (C)AGW proponent site griping about them (and also one result from Lucia’s site where there was griping, your call if that’s in the “other” list).
Heh. Idiot Tracker at Blogger is complaining. A lot of people are taking notice of these posts and spending a lot of time and effort complaining. The Legend of Steve Goddard grows large indeed.
Yes, I figured it out, Region Of Interest, which doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot without an actual boundary definition.
My ROI is the entire Arctic at the point of maximum sea ice extent (plus a few % for any sea ice movement ambiguities in the early part of the melt season) for the entire melt season.
From: EFS_Junior on June 26, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Wow, who knew basic reading comprehension was now classified as an advanced computer skill, which you seemingly lack. Said definition is there, findable as I said. Maybe you should re-read all of Goddard’s articles, but slower this time so you can (hopefully) actually know what is in them.
stevengoddard,
I was hoping that you could address this:
“According to your graphs, average ice depth today is 2.5 metres. Average ice depth last year was 2.1 metres. Volume, however, is about the same. This implies a decline in ice area of 15 per cent. That seems unlikely to me. As I pointed out, if we are just looking at the Arctic Basin that would imply an ice area this year some 750,000 square kilometres lower than at the same time last year.
Can you clarify whether you could the same result? I may be making another error, and would like to be sure of what it is that your analysis shows.”
Now, Arctic Basin area has, according to this: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.1.html
plummeted in recent days, and is now close to being 15 per cent below last year’s value at the same time. But at the time that you posted your analysis, this precipitous decline had only just begun. So can you tell me whether your analysis shows a 15 per cent decline in area in the Arctic Basin when this year is compared to last year?
As I said, I may well have made another error. These are intended to be genuine questions – I want to understand what it is that you are doing.
Anyhow here is a link to one page in one of my bloggs: Environment, Norah4history
Well so far as I am aware; I have no Nordic connections. But right at the top of my list of all time favorite singers, would be Kirsten Flagstad; and next would be Birgit Nilson. So of course some Nordic Mythology, at least in the Richard Wagner manifestation of that, in “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” is among my favorite relaxing moment passtimes. Actually the Saturday, that I landed on the docks in Manhattan some 49 years ago, with $40 cash in my pocket, and no place to stay; my wife and I spent $20 out of that $40 for a pair of dress circle (returns) seats to the afternoon Matinee performance of “Tristan and Isolde”, with Birgit Nilson singing her final performance for the season, at the Metropolitan Opera.
After that we looked for some place to stay; my wife was six months pregnant at the time, and I had no job or job offers.
So I maybe bending your ear, at your blog, if only to find out what Dala Horses are all about.
George