Temperature above 80 degrees north drops below freezing early, and continues to drop.
Many people have been watching the remarkable early drop in air temperature at the DMI plot here:
![meanT_2013[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/meant_20131.png?quality=75)
This drop looks to be about two weeks early. As this next analysis of sea surface temperature shows, much of the area is below freezing. Of course in seawater, ice doesn’t form until temperatures get below 28.4°F (-2°C), so it is close, but not quite there yet. [Note: due to lower salinity in the Arctic seawater freezes at -1.8C according to this essay at NOAA by Peter Wadhams]
National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch (MMAB) – Click the pic to view at sourceThe DMI sea ice plot looks to be slowing significantly, but has not made a turn yet.
![icecover_current_new[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/icecover_current_new11.png?quality=75)
The JAXA plot isn’t quite so different from previous years, but does show some slowing:
- Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) – International Arctic Research Center (IARC) – Click the pic to view at source
With this slowdown becoming evident, and temperature dropping early, the possibility exists that a turn in ice melt may start earlier than usual. If it does, we might see a turn begin in about two to three weeks if there’s any linkage between 80N temperature and sea ice extent. Typically, we see a turn in Arctic sea ice melt around September 15th to the 25th.
Of interest is this plot done by the blog “sunshine hours” which shows the difference between Arctic sea ice in 2012 and 2013.
He writes:
The difference is quite dramatic if you graph the anomaly % from the 30 year mean.
Until day 175 or so, the anomaly was only around -5% or so (note that the anomaly actually went positive for a few days in 2012).
While 2013 was later, both started drifting down. 2013 has stabilized at -15%. At this time last year 2012 was -30%.
Click image to enlarge.
Check out all of the data at the WUWT Sea Ice reference page
UPDATE:
Some commenters have noticed a large drop in today’s most recent plot.
First, regarding this graph:
![icecover_current[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/icecover_current1.png?quality=75)
That’s the old DMI plot, which DMI says we should now use this one on this page:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
They write:
The plot above replaces an earlier sea ice extent plot, that was based on data with the coastal zones masked out. This coastal mask implied that the previous sea ice extent estimates were underestimated. The new plot displays absolute sea ice extent estimates. The old plot can still be viewed here for a while.
And, that could be either an instrument failure or a processing failure. We’ve seen spikes like that before. It might also be real data, we won’t know until the next update.
I tend to favor loss of data, as reader “DJ” points out in comments, see this image:
![satcon.arc.d-00[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/satcon-arc-d-001.png?quality=75)
But yes, this post was edited last night at about 11PM PDT, and DMI updated the graph a few hours later.
when did you stop beating your dog…..
Greg Goodman
you said, “What is interesting is that the water is still WARM but the rate of melting has reduced.”
and I say, well, you can make up stuff but (as master says,) your assertions do not fit with reality.
As is clear from the above exchanges, MoSaT’s “facts” are selective revelations. Hey MoSaT, the local ice melted off in Mid-March. All objects on top of the ice ended up in the bottom of the lake. Someone may have videoed it. I don’t care, since it was near the latest melt-off in the last 18 years. If the “H bouy” has drifted far enough south, I’m surprised it didn’t melt out sooner.
I.e. facts are facts only with full disclosure…
Do a keyword search for “piomass” and you will see that they are not credible.
@Latitude
The Beaufort Sea has lost over 100,000 square kilometers of ice area in the past week.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.11.html
Swiss Bob says: @ur momisugly August 14, 2013 at 3:23 am
“I’ll laugh my head off if Arctic ice rebounds this year and continues into the next, what will they say then?”
The 30 year trend is still down.
Master of Space and Thyme says:
August 14, 2013 at 12:21 pm
Why are you surprised that the ice is melting? We are still 4-5 WEEKS away from the AVERAGE minimum sea Ice area data! The ice SHOULD BE melting now, and continuing to melt between now and late September. Losing 18 inches, 2 feet, 1 meter, or 48 inches or 5 feet of ice from an average depth of 2 meters of ice is EXPECTED – depending on latitude, as Latitude corectly pointed out, but which you ignored. ALL of the Arctic ice between today’s limits and 85 north SHOULD be expected to melt EVERY year.
Oh, by the way, the more Arctic sea ice that melts from now until later September, the cooler the planet gets.
The more that the Antarctic sea ice expands between now and its new record-setting maximum in late September, the more the planet cools You are ignoring, in your enthusiasm to save your CAGW belief system, the several very different heat transfer physics relationships that are is going on in the Arctic and in the Antarctic.
jai mitchell says:
Greg Goodman
you said, “What is interesting is that the water is still WARM but the rate of melting has reduced.”
and I say, well, you can make up stuff but (as master says,) your assertions do not fit with reality.
LOL, I present you with real data, and you reply with a model. What I show with real observational data you call “assertions” and what you show with model output is “reality”.
Sums up CAGW in a nutshell.
A comment was raised above about melt water pond albedo and the resulting melt rate: The freshwater/saltwater ratio in each melt pond plays a role, as pointed out already. But, rember, MOST of the melt-water-pond measurements are (quite properly!) taken during the summer melting season. (Obviously!) And, in almost every summer when the sea ice melt water ponds occur, the air temperature is not only above -2.0 C, but actually well above even the DMI’s 3-5 degrees C. (Many ponds are further south of the DMI’s 80 degree north latitude display band.) Thus, the fresh water that IS in those ponds, generally won’t fre under any condition. Drain away? Sometimes. Ger covered by new snow? Sometimes. Not too often. Refreeze? Again, sometimes.
But, in today’s actual conditions of “weather” at -3 degrees, the probability of re-freezing is much, much higher than normal, so many of the old estimates for albedo and heat transfer are simply irrelevant. Even if you assume that those estimates and assumptions are correct for “normal year” of +3-5 degrees C, today? They are worse than irrelevant: They are dead wrong.
Curry has measured the “clean” the “new” and the “snow-covered” Arctic sea ice several times: This “clean ice” albedo of October through late May albedo is significantly higher than the AVERAGE mid-summer (June-July-August-mid-September) sea ice albedo. Her measured values, as I recall, are 0.85 for new sea ice (or clean, pre-melt season sea ice); and right at 0.65 to 0.73 for melt season sea ice. Other measurements are a little bit lower: some have found sea ice albedos a slow as 0.54
mods, why did that last post hit moderation?
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 14, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Are we supposed to use lower case letters for acronyms now ? Please say what trip-wire I’ve triggered and I’ll attempt to avoid breaking the “rules” in the future.
[Reply: Sometimes we don’t know the reason a comment ends up in spam. WordPress has their own rules. Anyway, your comment is posted now. — mod.]
@dbstealey
It appears you haven’t heard about this paper which validated PIOMAS. In fact when compared to CryoSat-2, PIOMAS actually underestimates summer and fall ice volume.
CryoSat-2 estimates of Arctic sea ice thickness and volume (Laxon et al., GRL, doi:10.1002/grl.50193)
. Results from the Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation system (PIOMAS) suggest that the decline in extent has been accompanied by a decline in volume, but this has not been confirmed by data. Using new data from the European Space Agency CryoSat-2 (CS-2) mission, validated with in situ data, we generate estimates of ice volume for the winters of 2010/11 and 2011/12. We compare these data with current estimates from PIOMAS and earlier (2003–8) estimates from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ICESat mission. Between the ICESat and CryoSat-2 periods, the autumn volume declined by 4291 km3 and the winter volume by 1479 km3. This exceeds the decline in ice volume in the central Arctic from the PIOMAS model of 2644 km3 in the autumn, but is less than the 2091 km3 in winter, between the two time periods.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50193/abstract
The Beaufort Sea has lost over 100,000 square kilometers of ice area in the past week.
====
Well then there you go….that’s 1/10th the size of Egypt
..did you not notice which way the wind was blowing
and the sea of Okhotsk is slightly above normal
Tom says:
August 14, 2013 at 12:39 pm responding to
Swiss Bob says: @ur momisugly August 14, 2013 at 3:23 am
“I’ll laugh my head off if Arctic ice rebounds this year and continues into the next, what will they say then?”
And, what will happen if another 2,000,000 sq km’s of Arctic sea [ice] area go away in mid-September?
On the other hand, what will happen if another EXTRA 1,000,000 sq km’s of Antarctic Sea Ice remain after ITS melt season this March? As what happened last March?
RACookPE1978 says:
August 14, 2013 at 12:40 pm
“ALL of the Arctic ice between today’s limits and 85 north SHOULD be expected to melt EVERY year.”
Please explain this ridiculous statement.
Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice is going to set a satellite era record extent. Beating last year’s record extent.
I expect the usual silence from climatologists, the complicit media, etc on this inconvenient truth.
Look at your globe please.
The average Arctic minimum sea ice area is 2,000,000 sq km.
That is an area corresponding to the area between 85 north latitude and the Pole.
If you demand we use 3,000,000 sq km as the “required” Arctic sea ice minimum for some reason, then the area is a spherical “cap” between 83 north latitude and the pole. But you’d have to justify why you think 3,000,00 km sq is “required” as a correct minimum sea ice area. (Sea ice extents are larger at 3.5 to 4.0 million km sq.)
Philip I echo your sediments.
[Was that a quick and dirty answer? Or your bottom line feelings based on sonar results? 8<) Mod]
RACookPE1978 says:
A comment was raised above about melt water pond albedo and the resulting melt rate:
Actually my comment was about sea water albedo vs ice albedo. But similar arguments apply to melt ponds but are much less in area.
Thanks for the extra detail.
@Latitude
“the sea of Okhotsk is slightly above normal”
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.14.html
If above normal means the Sea of Okhotsk has completely melted out, then you are correct.
I think you are just here just to argue and you’re not the least bit interested in facts or science.
..you do know that’s normal…..right?
Next you’ll be claiming that since I use a handle and not my real name…………
@MoST
Have you entered a minimum arctic sea ice extent prediction in the survey? Tell us what it is. Then we can see who is right and who is dead. (Obligatory Princess Bride reference)
@Latitude
You’re wasting your talent here, you should be singing in the illiterati choir at Steven Goddard’s science fiction blog.
why?…did you get banned again
Why would anyone go to Steve Goddard’s blog?
I spend most of my online times at blogs where there is a reasonable chance that I will learn something new. I made a exception and came here last week because the situation regarding the cyclone in the Arctic was being misrepresented and I wanted to set the record straight.
I’ve never even heard of Steve Goddard……….I have no idea what you’re talking about