According to the ice breakup log, the latest the ice has ever gone out was May 20th, 1964 at 11:41 AM Alaska Standard Time. As of this writing there is about 28 hours to go to break that record.
Geophysicist Martin Jeffries at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks said in 2009,
The Nenana Ice Classic is a pretty good proxy for climate change in the 20th century.
If that’s true, it looks like we are headed to colder times. Here is the current live view which updates every 30 seconds.
Refresh to see the latest.
I’ve been watching over the past 12 hours and the tripod has drifted downstream slightly, rope slack changes gave the impression that the tripod had changed position, but that’s an artifact of wind, and there appear to be leads in the ice opening nearby, though it is hard to tell if they go through the ice or if it is simply water on the surface.
Here is what the image looked like on 5-15-13 (thanks to Willis):
They need a weather station there to go with the live image. Many people want to know what the temperature and wind conditions are like.
[UPDATE] I trust Anthony won’t mind my adding a blink comparator between the 16th at two in the afternoon, and the 19th at ten in the morning. Click on the image to see the comparison.
From my inspection, I’d say the tripod hasn’t moved … it looks like it’s tipped a bit, but I think that’s just the different sun angles, because the black-painted sections don’t seem to be moving.
It’s the most exciting slow-motion event I know of …
w.
1964 was also the year of the Good Friday earthquake (March 27).
philjourdan says:
May 20, 2013 at 7:26 am
@frank K – since the time is in standard, and the east cost is on Daylight, I think that pushes it another hour. Make it 4:42 EDT.
Duly noted. I thought the difference was 4 hours – not that it matters much at this point. Even if the tripod goes down before 4:42 EDT, the current position of #2 all time is solidly in the record books.
Not that this event is a proxy for anything. I mean climatologists NEVER EVER use weather-related events to make the claim for global “warming” – NEVER!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/09/trenberth-still-hyping-extreme-weather-events-and-climate-change/
Two hours to a new record!
(Measured as time from solstice, to avoid leap year issues)
I too refuse to pollute my fine single malt Scotch with anything. But I’ve found these to be useful:
https://www.thinkgeek.com/brain/whereisit.cgi?t=whiskey+stones
So, if I understand correctly, the quadrapod needs to stand until after 4:42pm EDT in order to break the record?
Steve Divine says:
May 20, 2013 at 7:05 am
> Current record is 11:41 AM AST / 12:41 PM ADT so web cam will have to show 12:42 (ADT, which would be 11:42 AST).
Just to be completely anal, AST is the Atlantic timezone. The webcam reports AKDT (Alaska Daylight Time), the Ice Classic Brochure and many other items use AKST, presumably to accommodate any guesses across the shift from standard to daylight time. Remember that Daylight Time used to start later in the year but the mole rats in Congress keep messing with it. So while these years pre daylight time would be an alarmists dream, it wasn’t in the past when daylight time started on the last Sunday in April.
TomB says:
May 20, 2013 at 8:40 am
> So, if I understand correctly, the quadrapod needs to stand until after 4:42pm EDT in order to break the record?
That’s what my mental math says, checked multiple ways. Ignore the time since solstice folks, diurnal effects swamp any solar declination differences. (The equinox begins at declination 0°, when the center of the Sun passes the equator heading north. Well, slightly north of due west.)
Jimmy Haigh. says:
May 20, 2013 at 7:16 am
“Being a true Scotsman, of course, I drink my whisky neat.”
Of course you do, but in smoke-filled back rooms American politicians established the tradition of picking candidates ‘who could win’ while smoking cigars and having bourbon and branch.
As noted earlier by Henry P, 1964 was a leap year so we might have to wait another 24 hours more for the true record.
I’m watching this while drinking a few beers at home. I ran out of cold ones so put a new one up top in the ice box. It’s a fine line: if the beer hasn’t been up top for long enough it’s not at optimum temperature, so you tend to drink it too fast thus not allowing the next beer to be at optimum temperature either. I’m practicing great restraint here in allowing the next one a few more minutes to reach “tipping point”.
I could always pop open a bottle of 21 YO Aberfeldy I suppose… A very fine single malt from my home town – and one which I thoroughly recommend. (And to any warm-mongers out there – I am not in the pay of big whisky. Either…)
Gary Pearse says:
As noted earlier by Henry P, 1964 was a leap year so we might have to wait another 24 hours more for the true record.
No. The record according to the Nenana books comes at 11:41 AKST (a bit more than 3 1/2 hours from now). The “true” record – eliminating calendar issues by measuring from the solstice – comes less than 1 1/2 hours from now.
I think the leap year issue has been handled well by others above, but I still see people bringing it up. Leap year and the year after a leap year does not make much of a difference, approximately six hours of variation. If you magically took away 1964’s leap year the record would indeed be on May 21st, but also remember without that leap day today would be May 21st 2013 as well.
Ric Werme, 19 may 1:15
“The authors suggested that growing winter ice in the Bering Sea — the result of cooler surface temperatures — led to lower temperatures across nearly all of Alaska.”
That must be a mistake since it implies that if there was less ice and more open water it would be warmer. And don’t we all know that less ice on the Artic Ocean itself leads to colder winters in Europe?
Rik: ” diurnal effects swamp any solar declination differences. ”
Its the declination differences which cause the thing to freeze and melt in the first place,you seem to be over looking that.
If diurnal effects swamp it , it would melt and freeze every day of the year.
So if we want to know whether it melts after 149 days or 150 days we’d better work out what zero is. A variable administrative calendar that jumps back and forth is fine for a bet but may not be the most useful for a climate proxy.
Winter Solstice of 1963 was December 22 at 4:02 am AST
Nenana Ice Breakup was May 20, 1964 at 11:41 am AST
The interval was 150 days, 7 hours and 39 minutes
Winter Solstice of 1964 was December 21 at 1:12 am AST
An equivalent interval gives the time to beat of
May 20, 2013 at 8:51 am AST.
Cheers (in a half hour)!
so Spring has been coming to the Alaskan interior about 10 days earlier than in 1960. who allowed that in?
Mark Serreze said the Bering Sea ice growth was a fluke in 2010.
Gary Pearse says:
May 20, 2013 at 8:50 am
As noted earlier by Henry P, 1964 was a leap year so we might have to wait another 24 hours more for the true record.
You need to read some of the earlier discussions. Last year was a leap year, so the delay is more like six hours (or possibly less – ca. three hours, since we’re only partway through the year) if you want to account for a leap year. I doubt that the residents of Nenana actually care about that and will declare the breakup based on the calender date. There are commenters above who have worked out the details. One other delay is that Alaska actually shifts to day-light-savings time in the summer for some peculiar reason. In the summer, darkness is a relative affair, and in the winter in Fairbanks there’s no particular distinction between dawn and dusk. If any place in the US doesn’t need to “save” daylight, it is Alaska.
Well, there’s the record (unofficially – not that I’m in a position to speak in an official capacity…)
So 9:33 on the webcam clock would be a new record?
Steve Divine says:
May 20, 2013 at 7:05 am
Current record is 11:41 AM AST / 12:41 PM ADT so web cam will have to show 12:42 (ADT, which would be 11:42 AST).
—
If you look at my postings on this, I at least will be celebrating the record in about 20 minutes time, 18:33BST, 09:33 Alaskan daylight savings time.
Rich.
DR says: May 20, 2013 at 9:28 am
Mark Serreze said the Bering Sea ice growth was a fluke in 2010.
Apparently there’s a lot of fluke around theses days…:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
Duster says: May 20, 2013 at 9:42 am
One other delay is that Alaska actually shifts to day-light-savings time in the summer for some peculiar reason.
“The Nenana Ice Classic does not change to Daylight Savings Time. All times are Alaska Standard Time.”
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/tickets.htm
I do wish those people would leave their SUV’s at home…
Well, if they could “save” it for 6 months, I am sure they would enjoy it more! 😉
Thank goodness it’s not Sandra Fluke.
Has the image frozen at 9:17:16 local time for anyone else?