This is a 5 frames per second timelapse taken from the webcam at 30 second intervals of the Nenana Ice Classic on May 20th, 2013 from 4PM to 5PM PDT (15:00-16:00 AKDT). Breakup started about 15:43 AKDT (about 16 seconds in this video) in and went very quickly. Notice the ice stopped flowing in the river at the end, suggesting an ice jam formed downstream.
Watch the video:
Curious that the 1964 previous record was almost spot on at the time of solar minimum, while the new 2013 record is at solar maximum, all be it cycle 24 is a very weak one.
Link to SSN chart…
http://www.shelios.com/sh2012/images/figure2.png
I would have bet that it would move off to the right of the screen. I guess that is why I am not a betting man…
Actually ice breakup dates seem to be rather good temperature proxies. In Torne river in Sweden ice breakup tends to be violent and can cause large scale flooding, so records have been kept of it since the late seventeenth century. There is also a reasonably good temperature record from the same area since 1802, and the correlation between the breakup date and spring temperature is better than 0.8.
Who says that lightning never strikes twice? The winners, named Snow, had previously won it in 2005, albeit shared with 46 people. They had bought $125 of tickets, so not allowing for their supreme skill it was less than a 1 in 2000 chance for them.
I’m glad that the event, at 1441 AKST, was a record not only against the vernal equinox (broken at 0833) but also against the calendar (broken at 1141). Of course, better still would have been on a later calendar date. How many years before that happens?
Rich.
Berényi Péter – Nice graph. I cant see any discernible trend line in the graph. Which is reassuring. Then again someone with better statistical skills than me might find something.
At the end of the video the ice plugs and stops again. Its still stopped. Has the ice-out really happened yet or not? Maybe we should wait until the river is continuously flowing.
Those pop-up ads at the bottom of the screen are damn irritating, covering the car park and people.
Dave 1:34 am.
Blow statistics! If you can’t see it, it’s not there!!
All of a sudden!!!
I assume the Octopod is caught downstream for re-use.
Now we wait for the refreeze and I assume that there is a timed record sheet waiting.
Kind of like watching paint dry.
Then BOOM !!
On the link Colorado Wellington gave us Sagarin says:
“Phenology was pooh-poohed until recently, but now it’s recognized as important data, because ****climate change is a relatively recent phenomenon that has caught scientists by surprise****”
I almost choked on my lunch!
Master_Of_Puppets says:
May 20, 2013 at 8:02 pm
“checking the jack-rabit population of Australia.”
Best of luck doing that. Australia has European rabbits and European hares. A limited amount of American jack rabbits were introduced to try and propagate virus’s among the plague proportion of the introduced European species.
Berényi Péter says:
May 20, 2013 at 9:08 pm
> A true hockey stick, it is.
You might want to change the Y axis label to refer to the “vernal” equinox. 🙂
“Neither Strick nor remmer01 can read, nor comprehend.”
It was a simple question, not answered in this thread (wasn’t aware reading all the threads was a requirement of reading comprehension). Thanks for your reply.
John Marshall says:
May 21, 2013 at 2:58 am
> Now we wait for the refreeze and I assume that there is a timed record sheet waiting.
It’s a lot harder to accurately time refreeze with any reasonable definition of refreeze that I can think of, though with some study you might be able to define some point in the middle of the channel that when there’s motionless ice there, there’s likely ice from shore to shore.
It probably usually occurs in the middle of a cloudless night. The Ice Classic folks don’t seem to track it. Ice out per their definition is much more dramatic and easier to observe.
” @tty says:
May 20, 2013 at 11:58 pm
Actually ice breakup dates seem to be rather good temperature proxies. In Torne river in Sweden ice breakup tends to be violent and can cause large scale flooding, so records have been kept of it since the late seventeenth century. There is also a reasonably good temperature record from the same area since 1802, and the correlation between the breakup date and spring temperature is better than 0.8.”
Please don’t leave us in suspense; what is happening on the Torne river in Sweden this year?
No no no no nooooo!!! None of you understand at all! Has it gone or not? – you cant say just from seeing it move down the river. It all depends on your choice of baseline year! And which statistical model of tripod displacement you employ. And on your method of gridding of the ice on the river. Go figure
You fools! It isn’t “global warming’ that we’re worried about. It’s “climate change.” This is change! Change is bad! Silence = death! (rinse and repeat…)
You say nenana, I say banahnahs.
Next year’s classic June 20? I prefer a warmer climate myself, with more food for everyone. Another Maunder minimum would be good for no one, except for those who keep warm by laughing at the climate witch doctors.
While the ice moved, it is still not out. This is visible at the end of Anthony’s time lapse, and check out the current ice cam:
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
That river is far from navigable. It is much more jammed up than it was. Have any records been kept on when the river becomes navigable? Does it usually become navigable after it first moves?
Would be interesting to know if this re-stick is an unusual event.
Alec Rawls says:
May 21, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Good point. Its still stuck now.
Struth !!! we’ve all been gypped, we have !
You could knock me over with a pyramidal quadruped ; ‘ere I was waiting for the bloody thing to go ripping off to the right; like, downstream you know; downstream is always to the right.
Never seen such a thing in me ‘ole life; icy rivers flowing to the left.
Bah ! Humbug !
Anthony,
Could you please stop wrapping your video embeds? It’s really annoying.
REPLY: “wrapping” ??? explain – A
Rivers running clear now, looks inviting actually, though I fear that any man venturing a swim would quickly develop lumps behind the ears..
As a poor geologist I am pretty much in awe of the intelligence that comes out of the group that WUWT attracts. It is a testament to what collaboration and instant communication with out borders can achieve. I believe that great wisdom rings the same in essence across many disciplines. Some people have the native ability to express that wisdom in such a way that no matter what we do the relevance becomes obvious. This quote is on the surface about rowing but it applies beautifully to scientific theory and perhaps says a lot about the modeling mess we have found ourselves in.
Enjoy .
“A good rower sets his course in relation to objects he is leaving
behind. Oh sure, there is the occasional glance over the shoulder ,
but the real work is done backwards, and the only way for the rower
to get to where he is going is to face squarely where he has been and
proceed as best as he can. There’s a good deal of loose talk about
“facing the future” , and it is all very inspirational so long as we
realize that anatomically and metaphysically it can’t be done. Like
the rower we face the past and back into the future….. Edward Ives