It has been awhile since I posted a Sea Ice News. This one is a two parter. NSIDC’s Monthly Sea Ice News comes first, followed by some images and content I find interesting. Kudos to NSIDC for flagging the AO instead of “climate change” for the low January extent. – Anthony
From NSIDC:
Arctic Oscillation brings record low January extent, unusual mid-latitude weather
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was the lowest in the satellite record for that month. The Arctic oscillation persisted in its strong negative phase for most of the month, keeping ice extent low.
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for January 2011 was 13.55 million square kilometers (5.23 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data. About the data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data CenterHigh-resolution image
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent averaged over January 2011 was 13.55 million square kilometers (5.23 million square miles). This was the lowest January ice extent recorded since satellite records began in 1979. It was 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles) below the record low of 13.60 million square kilometers (5.25 million square miles), set in 2006, and 1.27 million square kilometers (490,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.
Ice extent in January 2011 remained unusually low in Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait (between southern Baffin Island and Labrador), and Davis Strait (between Baffin Island and Greenland). Normally, these areas freeze over by late November, but this year Hudson Bay did not completely freeze over until mid-January. The Labrador Sea remains largely ice-free.
Figure 2. The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of January 31, 2011, along with daily ice extents for previous low-ice-extent years in the month of January. Light blue indicates 2010-2011, green shows 2005-2006 (the record low for the month was in 2006), and dark gray shows the 1979 to 2000 average. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data CenterHigh-resolution image
Conditions in context
Air temperatures over much of the Arctic were 2 to 6 degrees Celsius (4 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in January. Over the eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Bay/Davis Strait and Labrador Sea, temperatures were at least 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average. Temperatures were near average over the western Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Scandinavia.
As in December 2010, the warm temperatures in January came from two sources: unfrozen areas of the ocean continued to release heat to the atmosphere, and the wind patterns accompanying the negative phase of the Arctic oscillation brought warm air into the Arctic. Near the end of January the negative Arctic oscillation pattern broke down and turned positive, which usually favors ice growth. It is unclear how long it will remain in a positive mode.
Figure 3. Monthly January ice extent for 1979 to 2011 shows a decline of 3.3% per decade.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data CenterHigh-resolution image
January 2011 compared to past yearsJanuary 2011 had the lowest ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records. The linear rate of decline for the month is –3.3% per decade.
Ice extent for the Arctic as a whole increased at an average of 42,800 square kilometers (16,500 square miles) per day through the month of January, which is about average.
Figure 4. This graph shows the ice extent in Hudson Bay from late November to the end of January, for the last five years. This year, Hudson Bay froze up substantially later than in previous years. MASIE data.
—Credit: NSIDC /NIC MASIE ProductHigh-resolution image
Slow regional ice growth
In contrast, regional ice growth has been particularly slow compared to past years. Hudson Bay did not completely freeze up until mid-January, about a month later than normal according to Canadian Ice Service analyses. The Labrador Sea region is still largely free of ice, except in protected bays along the coast. Normally at this time of year, ice extends several hundred kilometers from the coast all the way to northern Nova Scotia.
Figure 5. These images show high and low atmospheric pressure patterns for January 2011 (left) and the January 1968-1996 average (right). Yellows and reds show higher pressures; blues and purples indicate lower pressures, as indicated by the height of the 850 millibar pressure level above the surface, called the pressure surface. Normally, the pressure surface is nearer to the surface around the pole, winds follow the pressure contours around the pole (the polar vortex), and cold air is trapped in the Arctic. This year, the pressure pattern is allowing cold air to spill out of the Arctic into the mid-latitudes.
—Credit: NSIDC courtesy NOAA/ESRL PSDHigh-resolution image
Potential links with mid-latitude weather
While the Arctic has been warm, cold and stormy weather has affected much of the Northeast U.S. and Europe. Last winter also paired an anomalously warm Arctic with cold and snowy weather for the eastern U.S. and northern Europe. Is there a connection?
Warm conditions in the Arctic and cold conditions in northern Europe and the U.S. are linked to the strong negative mode of the Arctic oscillation. Cold air is denser than warmer air, so it sits closer to the surface. Around the North Pole, this dense cold air causes a circular wind pattern called the polar vortex , which helps keep cold air trapped near the poles. When sea ice has not formed during autumn and winter, heat from the ocean escapes and warms the atmosphere. This may weaken the polar vortex and allow air to spill out of the Arctic and into mid-latitude regions in some years, bringing potentially cold winter weather to lower latitudes.
Some scientists have speculated that more frequent episodes of a negative Arctic Oscillation, and the stormy winters that result, are linked to the loss of sea ice in the Arctic. Dr. James Overland of NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) recently noted a link between low sea ice and a weak polar vortex in 2005, 2008, and the past two winters, all years with very low September sea ice extent. Earlier work by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University and colleagues also suggested a relationship between autumn sea ice levels and mid-latitude winter conditions. Judah Cohen, at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., and his colleagues propose another idea—a potential relationship between early snowfall in northern Siberia, a negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, and more extreme winters elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. More research on these ideas may shed light on the connections and have the potential to improve seasonal weather forecasting.
Further reading
Francis, J.A., Chan, W-H., Leathers, D.J., Miller, J.R., Veron, D.E., 2009. Winter Northern Hemisphere weather patterns remember summer. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L07503, doi:10.1029/2009GL037274.
Overland, J.E., Wang, M-Y., 2010. Large-scale atmospheric circulation changes are associated with the recent loss of Arctic sea ice. Tellus 62A, 1-9.
Cohen, J., J. Foster, M. Barlow, K. Saito, and J. Jones, 2010. Winter 2009-2010: A case study of an extreme Arctic Oscillation event. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L17707, doi:10.1029/2010GL044256.
====================================================================
NSIDC is correct about Hudson Bay. It took a longer time to freeze up this year.
JAXA extent shows 2011 about the same as 2010 right now – click for a large image
I would also add this NSIDC image, which shows that some of the areas missing ice extent are well outside of the Arctic circle, south of Greenland. This is consequence of the Arctic Oscillation and weather effects in the region.
I do find the NAVY PIPS ice thickness data interesting though. I’ve animated the Feb 1st plots from 2007 through 2011 together:
The way I read it, above 80°N to the pole, we have an increase in thickness and an increase in expanse of thicker ice since 2009. The pressure ridges from wind driven ice pushed up against Greenland also seem to have minimized a bit on 2011. If this is the case, this may have some implications for the 2011 summer minimum.
You can plot individual dates here and do your own comparisons.
See more on the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page here
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If they have been adding a little bit each year to GISS and the world cools we may be able to see these manipulations. The difference between the satellite chart and GISS should be diverging for the last 25 years. The divergence should show a marked increase over the last 10 years. As the satellite has shown a slight warming and GISS is breaking records. This divergence should increase if the satellite shows cooling.
Peter Plail says:
February 3, 2011 at 10:19 am
R Gates
“It is after all, just a model, but fortunately we’ll have real ………. data in the near future and then can get some meaningful estimates….”
Just about sums up my scepticism about the whole global warming industry.
========
PIPS 2.0 Concentration forecast side by side with Actual Microwave Imager plot.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Concentration&year=2011&month=2&day=2
PIPS concentration forecasting appears to be cross-checked daily to actual conditions.
Thanks for the data RaR.
I am not sure how to relate the OLR to the heat of fusion. What percentage of heat accumulates in the water under the ice and what percentage is released through OLR?
How do you separate the the OLR due to black body cooling from the latent heat released? Then we need to calculate the contribution to the entire global heat budget.
So does anyone know when and where we can start seeing cryosat data?
Thanks John from CA. Maybe it’s the scale, or just unused to looking at this, but is the April 2010 showing more ice cover of the Sea of Okhotsk compared with Jan 2011?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/050410.html
The Russian sailors have only just been freed from being trapped in the ice. I can’t seem to get December 2010 picture at the time they got frozen in (*), the nearest I can find is http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/120610.html which is Nov 2010 and says that this November the second lowest ice-extent for that month. Is this how they got trapped? Thinking it was going to be this mild? I wonder how sudden the freeze and from what extent pre and post?
Prefer my maps with names … http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm
(*) Can’t get the December map from the choices box, and I’ve tried typing in a few end December dates manually, but it comes up page not found.
richcar 1225 says:
February 3, 2011 at 11:37 am
The latent heat of fusion is 335 kJ / kg of ice made. 10 W/m^2 of internal energy removed from water at 273K would make 1 kg of ice every 33,500 seconds.
Very little latent and sensable heat accumulates in the water.
See: http://nome.colorado.edu/HARC/Readings/Barry2.pdf
Calculating the contribution to the entire global energy budget is problematic because the amount of OLR radiated is a fuction of volume/mass of ice made and there are currently no historic data sets available, everything has been estimated.
FergalR says:
February 3, 2011 at 8:07 am
“I’ve already posted this in tips and notes, but Cryosat-2′s data was released on the 1st: http://earth.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=6842
There’s a hell of a lot of it though, so I think there’ll be a long wait for reality to replace the models.”
Cryostat-2 will provide volume/mass data going forward but for now all that can be said is that for November 2010 ice was being made at the rate of approximately 1 kg per m^2 per 33,500 seconds faster that it had been in the past.
rAr,
Thanks for the info. I will study the pdf. We are all trying to learn on this site even if we are a little paranoid. I would be interested to hear your take on the pips2 vs Piomass controversy. Is Piomass being over influenced by by GCM modeling?
In addition to the negative Arctic Oscillation noted in the NSIDC press release, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has been in an extended negative phase as is reflected in this NAO index chart;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/month_nao_index.shtml
In fact the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index has been negative for last 16 months;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table
which is the longest stretch of negative monthly NAOs in the historical record.
If you look at the 60 year trend of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/JFM_season_nao_index.shtml
it looks like the trend of more positive NAOs that began in the 70s has ceased, and the NAO may be trending towards more extended and strongly negative phases in the coming years.
Also, for those of you who would like to keep track Arctic Sea Ice by region, NSIDC’s monthly info is here;
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/
the plots are here;
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/plots/
data broken out by region for the last 30 days is here;
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02186/masie_extent_sqkm.csv
and Cryoshpere Today’s monthly plots can be found at the bottom of this page:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.4.html
Myrrh says:
February 3, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Thanks John from CA. Maybe it’s the scale, or just unused to looking at this, but is the April 2010 showing more ice cover of the Sea of Okhotsk compared with Jan 2011?
=======
Try The Cryosphere Today for comparisons but keep in mind they only show 30% and above for sea ice.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=01&fd=31&fy=2010&sm=01&sd=31&sy=2011
“”””” rAr says:
February 3, 2011 at 12:50 pm
richcar 1225 says:
February 3, 2011 at 11:37 am
The latent heat of fusion is 335 kJ / kg of ice made. 10 W/m^2 of internal energy removed from water at 273K would make 1 kg of ice every 33,500 seconds. “””””
Not necessarily; it might not make one single molecule of ice.
If the water is well mixed as you remove the 10W/m^2, the Temperature of the water will drop, and we presume that since it is water, that it is not at or below 273.15 K (for pure water)
But I agree; once you get ALL of the well mixed water down to 273.15 K, then you could make ice at about the rate you state.
That is such a misleading analysis by NSIDC, but I’m not surprised.
I’ve considered NSIDC ‘in the tank’ for the warmist taliban for quite some time, due to their propensity for taking a small data sample and trying to make a worst- case scenario with it. The Government just loves to tell scary stories, even if they have to make them up.
I view IJIS, et al, data daily. Only at the beginning of the month of January was arctic sea ice extent below it’s 10 yr. range and that was due to the blocking high sitting west of Greenland during December.
Anyone can see that the ice has recovered quite nicely.- regardless of what NSIDC says. The fact that the propagandists’ data and pronouncements can quickly be checked hasn’t seemed to affect their output, guess they still think they can fool all the people…
richcar 1225
It looks like pips2 forecasts is for 120 hours and is reinitialized with the ice concentration data from SSM/I for each forcast. Piomass goes far into the future based on a NAO/AO forcing “locked” into a positive phase to simulate greenhouse gas-induced warming so it’s kind of an apples to oranges comparison.
Per Just The Facts post it looks like projections based on a “locked” positive phase for the NAO/AO isn’t going to produce results matching reality.
“The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole.”
I bet the use of a “cross” was not a mere coincidence. It must have some hidden meaning for skeptics. Either you are putting the North Pole in your “cross-hairs” and targeting the ice for violence, or you plan to send Christian missionaries up there to reclaim those wayward elves. Which uncivil act are you planning? /Sarc
John From Ca said
“What open water, the Arctic froze over very early this year ”
For October
“Ice grew at an average daily rate for the month of October of 92,700 kilometers per day (35,800 square miles per day). This was similar to the growth rate in 2009, but slower than the growth rate following the 2007 and 2008 minimum ice extents. It was slightly faster than the 1979 to 2000 average rate of 82,200 square kilometers (31,700 square miles) per day.
At the end of October, ice growth slowed, and at the end of the month extensive open water areas remained in the Beaufort, Chukchi, Kara and Barents seas”
For November
“Arctic sea ice grew more slowly than average in November, leading to the second-lowest ice extent for the month. ”
So it started off fast and then petered out, the speed at the start is just because it was so low, not because it was colder.
Andy
Bob(Sceptical Redcoat) said
February 3, 2011 at 7:56 am
Arctic sea ice appears to be doing fine; increasing in thickness and spread in recent years. Sea ice loss has occurred almost entirely in the southerly regions, well beyond the Arctic Circle.
___________________________
In winter it cannot have increased spread except at lower lattitudes as it ia contrained by land mass. In summer it is not constrained and ice loss is increasing. So I don’t think your statement is correct.
Andy
Myrrh or anyone else wanting to learn more about the Sea of Okhotsk — the following link will be helpful. Then go to the home page and look for the update to the story. [Verity Jones, site owner, has been busy and not posting much the last few weeks.]
http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/ice-build-up-in-sea-of-okhotsk/
John from CA & John F. Hultquist – thank you very much for the links, fascinating story.
kwinterkorn says: February 3, 2011 at 8:00 am
Another negative feedback system fighting GW: Less polar ice means more heat escapes the ocean, heats the air, then is radiated out to space. Warmer air temps for now, less heat in the system in the long run.
The more I look at things, this seems to be the way it is. Open water means dumping heat, and very little warming from the sun due to angle of incidence.
Just The Facts says: February 3, 2011 at 1:51 pm If you look at the 60 year trend of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/JFM_season_nao_index.shtml
it looks like the trend of more positive NAOs that began in the 70s has ceased, and the NAO may be trending towards more extended and strongly negative phases in the coming years.
Very interesting link. The NOA appears to precedes global temperature trend by about a decade. The globe cooled from early 40s to early 70s, NOA had the same trend ten years earlier. Peak global temperature in 1998, NAO most positive in 1988. This would indicate that through 2020 we will see a continuing drop in global temperatures.
AndyW says:
February 3, 2011 at 9:56 pm
John From Ca said
“What open water, the Arctic froze over very early this year ”
=======
AndyW,
The Arctic was iced with high concentration by November 1st. Open water hasn’t been on the scope all winter. Are you referring to sea ice below 80N like Hudson Bay?
Myrrh says:
February 4, 2011 at 1:28 am
John from CA & John F. Hultquist – thank you very much for the links, fascinating story.
======
You’re welcome and interesting link.
The open water nonsense really throws me. If you look at the following, you’ll find a Volgoneft-131 (Russian tanker) in the Arctic at N 78°54′, E 176°48′.
Its been in that area all winter but I couldn’t dig up any reason why.
http://sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=UFTA
Any ideas?
footnote to my last comment: if you look at the Navy ice thickness figure, Volgoneft-131 (a Russian tanker) just “steamed” 20 nautical miles in 2.25 – 3+ meters of ice. That is a heck of a feat for a tanker?
Curious story in this, maybe its outfitted for Science or Oil exploration; pretty strange to float about all winter in -30° C conditions.
John from CA says:
February 4, 2011 at 9:51 am (Edit)
footnote to my last comment: if you look at the Navy ice thickness figure, Volgoneft-131 (a Russian tanker) just “steamed” 20 nautical miles in 2.25 – 3+ meters of ice. That is a heck of a feat for a tanker?
Now, compare that “feat” with the real-world, average-condition, happens-every-day-of-every-year-since-1914 of tankers steaming 20 nautical miles every 90 minutes for weeks at a time. But CAGW means the Arctic will be free of ice and sustaining ocean traffic?
I’m not terribly pleased with what I’m seeing in the concentration patterns at Cryosphere, particularly on the Euro side. Looks worse now than it did in mid January. That says not good things to me about about ice thickness this late in the freeze season.
racookpe1978 says:
February 4, 2011 at 10:27 am
John from CA says:
February 4, 2011 at 9:51 am (Edit)
But CAGW means the Arctic will be free of ice and sustaining ocean traffic?
========
The only soul on the face of the Earth that believes the Arctic will be ice free in the Summer is Al Gore. He’s probably dumb enough to believe it will be year round.
I really wish he’d “waltz” in and defend his statements but if “wishes were horses…”; probability is close to zero.
There is nothing worthy of note, I’ve seen over the years, in the Arctic. Ice melts and it freezes over again. Its a pretty boring story and the Polar Bears are doing just fine but would like the morons who stalk them from helicopters and tag their pups with stupid tags should lose their funding or “come on down” and DIE.
geo says:
February 4, 2011 at 11:24 am
I’m not terribly pleased…
====
geo,
you failed to read the post? You missed the message that Navy ice depth is showing progressively improving conditions? You missed the comments about the nonsense related to “ice free”conditions this winter?
Ice on the side of the “Euro” is largely irrelevant if you understand the currents.