Image Credit: National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
By WUWT Regular “Just The Facts”
Per the image above, Arctic Sea Ice Extent made a late season run, but it appears to have reached its maximum for the year. “NSIDC calculates daily extent using a five-day average of the data.” The “method takes the average of the previous five days, so that readers will see fewer “wiggles” in the tail end of the data series. The value of the trailing mean lags the actual data values, so sea ice values will appear lower when ice extent is increasing, but will appear larger when ice is decreasing.” NSIDC
JAXA’s Sea Ice Extent, which “is updated at around 3:00(UTC) every day” JAXA, shows a significant downward turn;
DMI’s Mean Temperature above 80°N has been running well above average;
and there is a another cold air outbreak headed into North America;
thus it is unlikely that we will see significant additional Arctic Sea Ice growth this season. Part of the reason for the relatively low Arctic Sea Ice Maximum this year is that several cold air outbreaks have occurred this winter, allowing cold air to escape the Arctic, e.g.;
resulting in second highest Great Lakes Sea Ice Coverage on record reaching 92.2% on March 6th, i.e.:
In the Southern Hemisphere, Sea Ice Area reached it’s 2nd highest Minimum on record on February 23rd, 2014, and somewhere in there lost its January rabbit ears;
resulting in a large area of Sea Ice now floating in the Southern Ocean:
Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area has now been above average for over 2 years and 4 months;
with the last negative anomaly recorded was on November 23rd, 2011, data here and graph below:
Global Sea Ice Area has remained stubbornly average over the last year and a quarter;
and Global Sea Ice Area Anomaly is currently just .083 Million sq km above the 1981 – 2010 average:
For additional information please visit the WUWT Sea Ice Page, Northern Regional Sea Ice Page and Great Lakes Ice Page.
Just a curiosity, but a cursory examination of the various charts on sea ice extent in the arctic seem to show the maximum has been moving later in the year. Any ideas as to if this is a statistically valid statement and if so, why the peak is happening later?
Comparison of the geomagnetic field and the position of the polar vortex.
The observed magnetic field is highly asymmetrical.
Lines of inclination are highly elliptical, with the North Magnetic Pole situated near one end of the ellipse.
The strength of the magnetic field is no longer a maximum at the North Magnetic Pole. In fact, there are now two maxima, one over central Canada, the other over Siberia.
Magnetic meridians do not converge radially on the North Magnetic Pole.
http://www.geomag.nrcan.gc.ca/images/field/fnor.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z70_nh_f120.gif
Expect another round of gnashing of teeth as sea ice this summer dips to near record low levels. The fact that NH ice got to w/i .63 mill of the long term average was a miracle that happened mostly at the last minute. It had been trending at -1.2mill for most of the winter. That suggests that that the recent uptick ice is thin and wont last long.
Several points
that big block of ice may appear to be floating freely but may in fact still be attached by ice to hyping to register on the satellite. It may week rejoin rather than floating off in the next few days.
Secondly most of the ice formation and melting is by the cold water underneath not the surface air temperature as evidenced by the ice taking no notice of those temperature anomalies.
While I would love to see another late rally it is unlikely but there may still be a slow move to the average for the 2000-2010 in the next 2 months as there is a lot of extra ice volume compared to recent years and the seasons seem to be 2-3 weeks late for melting and freezing recently
John Eggert, the day of maximum is kind of spread out
Year dMax Max
1987 52 16.21724
1996 52 15.42074
1991 56 15.58803
1998 56 16.02091
1982 58 16.27475
2008 58 15.30522
1995 59 15.32238
1979 60 16.56457
1994 61 15.72226
2009 61 15.16275
2000 63 15.44482
2001 63 15.66664
2012 64 15.25102
1980 65 16.25042
1989 65 15.72295
2011 66 14.67084
2002 68 15.57345
1986 69 16.11934
2007 69 14.78963
1988 70 16.24163
2004 70 15.25548
2006 70 14.73298
1990 71 16.21077
2005 71 14.94615
1992 72 15.53258
1993 72 16.00491
1981 73 15.71365
1983 73 16.33207
2013 73 15.14275
1985 76 16.11716
1984 78 15.76157
1997 79 15.63647
2014 79 14.96031
2003 80 15.58678
1999 89 15.55755
2010 90 15.28449
Ice will be much thicker this year than years past. It was low for most of the year because ONE AREA of the arctic was warmer than usual (the north sea near Scandinavia). That area and that area alone has weak ice, but that area melts first anyway. The reason the ice began rapidly expanding recently is because the temperatures in the north sea have let up and the winds blew the ice in that direction.
People need to stop looking at arctic ice formation as some sort of contagion. If one area is weak, it doesn’t mean that all areas are weak. Ice forms where water is cold enough to create ice. It’s that simple. If conditions are right the ice will form rapidly, if not not the ice won’t form. The ice does catch a cancer which then prevents it from growing. The ice is just frozen water.
Look at the ice in the middle of the arctic and look at the ice near the Canadian coast and surrounding islands. That ice there is extremely thick. The Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation are both in cold phases now, meaning that the warm gulf water is having difficulty penetrating and it is not warming that water. Ocean temperatures in that area is two degrees below normal. The north Atlantic is also below normal. When taken with the unusual thickness of MOST of the arctic ice, that suggests to me that the ice WON’T melt as easily (except for the area around Iceland and Scandinavia which has been warmer than normal all winter).
I predict this will be a bad year for the alarmists as it appears that rapid ice recovery is now well on its way.
The line should be “the ice DOESN’T catch a cancer which prevents it from growing.”
Max ice also appears to be later than normal this year. Just sayin’…
Uh, the idea that we’ll see a record low sounds a little far fetched. Notice how little of the darkest purple shows up in the 2012 to 2013 extent maps vs the current maps.
Solid regions of 1~2 meter thick ice across the entire pole don’t melt away too quickly from what I’ve seen watching the ice over the last few years.
Extent was suppressed because of AO being negative most of the winter; thicker ice did well and is in a good position not to be blow out into the Atlantic
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictnowcast.gif
No one is going to be sailing through the Northwest Passage this year.
here is march 25, 2013 for comparison
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticict/nowcast/ict2013032418_2013032500_035_arcticict.001.gif
I wonder what all this will look like after the melt season. Is it possible for the AO to stay negative through the summer? I read somewhere that a very strong possitive AO drove a lot of ice out of the Arctic Ocean several years ago. Could we see a repeat?
The thinner ice exists entirely on one side, along the north sea. The north sea was warmer than usual all winter. Relative to the whole arctic ice, it’s a small area in all. I’m not even a little worried about the ice this summer, it’ll likely expand beyond last year given all the other conditions. The northwest passage has MUCH MORE ice and the “sliver” of thick 5+ meter ice we see every winter in much wider than usual.
I have no idea what “William” is talking about. I think it really comes from the Al Gore “An Inconvenient Truth” explanation of ice melt that confuses so many people. Gore’s explanation was completely wrong. Gore made it seem as if there would be some point of no return with the ice which was ridiculous. Ice is just frozen water. Think of it this way, if one keep an ice tray full of water out of the freezer it would never turn to ice. Yet, once you put it back into the freezer (assuming it worked normally) it would instantaneously turn to ice no matter how long it was kept in its water state.
Why would arctic ice be any different? Once the conditions exist for water to freeze, you get ice. There are three main reasons why ice will expand: 1) The arctic ocean is below normal and is in its negative phase; 2) the North Atlantic now seems to be following suit and appears to be turning cold as well; 3) the area of arctic ice that is thickest is the area that melts last. The area of the arctic ice which is thinner (North Sea, which is what was keeping the ice from expanding outward all winter) is the area which melts first anyway.
This summer minimum will have a larger ice extent than last summer.
I predict that sometime in the next 200 years, the climate in Greenland will become more habitable as during the settlement by Vikings.
Whoops – Wrong image for PIOMAS volume! Try this one instead:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/piomas-20140228.png
Anthony: Let’s have an minimum extent prediction thread!
RE: Jeff says:
March 25, 2014 at 6:49 am
I think you are right. A lot of the arctic is ice-free by the end of the summer every year. You are paying attention to the ice that matters, next September.
One reason for the low extents of recent summers is that the PDO was warm, which has warmer than normal waters up in Bering Strait. Since it turned to a cold PDO, which has colder than average waters in Bering Strait, the ice has increased on that Pacific side of the Pole. If you look at the map of recent summers you’ll see the Chukchi Sea was basically ice-free, and that those ice-free waters extended north into areas covered by “Central Arctic” maps and graphs. We are talking well over a million km2 of water that was ice-free and now may have ice, next September. It would make a big difference to the extent graphs.
On the Atlantic side there is much less ice. For example, in Barents Sea the ice failed to “recover” much at all this winter, and set a record for least ice-cover (since 1979.) However that will not matter much in September, because Barents Sea rarely has any ice at all in September.
Having Barents Sea open all winter would have an obvious effect on the waters entering the Arctic Ocean via that route, The water is is less able to stratify into a colder,fresher “lens” on top, with slightly warmer and saltier water beneath, due to churning storms. Also lots of heat is lost when -30 Siberian air pours over the open waters. The question is: Was that cooling balanced by above-freezing North Atlantic air passing over those waters? The answer is unknown, but perhaps can be deduced by the way the edge of the ice retreats on the Atlantic side, and along the Siberian coast, this summer. My guess would be the water is colder. The Northeast Passage will be very open to the west, but I have my doubts about how open it will be towards the east, once you get past the Laptev Sea into the East Siberian Sea.
The Northwest Passage looks like it will be a tough go, this summer, especially towards the east.
I expect more ice this September. I don’t know why people call that a “recovery.” It seems more like a “debacle,” if you want a mild start to next winter.
It has been a cold winter, starting with November and continuing through to March, with about 1\3 of the time the high temps in Buffalo were at or below average lows … I’m more than ready for this pattern to break.
Here in Ottawa, Canada, they sawed keys in late February in the Rideau R. ice to hasten break-up and prevent flooding but it all froze up solid again. They are out there doing it again and breaking the ice right now and it is thick and no easy chore. Its still pretty frosty and might start to freeze up again. We had -19C overnight the day before yesterday and it was -16C this morning at 7:00 – they claim ridiculously we were a fraction of a degree warmer than the record – the warmists in theweathernetwork.com are still fighting the good fight. Its hard to believe there is any melting in the Canadian Arctic 2000km north of here.
william says:
March 25, 2014 at 6:15 am
… It had been trending at -1.2mill for most of the winter. That suggests that that the recent uptick ice is thin and wont last long.
william,
I believe the term you are looking for is:
Rotten ice
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/14/a-look-at-sea-ice-compared-to-this-date-in-2007/
Just for comparison MASIE showed day 73 as this year’s maximum. They include satellite imagery and operational data along with microwave sensor results, so the amount of ice extent is different. Usually the numbers are close at the annual maximums, but MASIE will show much more ice than the others in the summer.
According to MASIE, this year’s NH max ice extent on day 73 (March 14) was 15,523,208 sq. km.
A couple of small quibbles:
ren says: March 25, 2014 at 6:07 am
“Magnetic meridians do not converge radially on the North Magnetic Pole.”
I find it exceedingly difficult to think of them going around the pole. To my way of thinking, if you keep on following north as indicated by your magnetic compass you must end up at the pole. If you start on a different meridian, you still end up at the pole.
Jeff says: March 25, 2014 at 7:17 am
“Think of it this way, if one keep an ice tray full of water out of the freezer it would never turn to ice. Yet, once you put it back into the freezer (assuming it worked normally) it would instantaneously turn to ice no matter how long it was kept in its water state.”
No way can you extract the energy from the water “instantaneously”. Quickly, if cold enough, slowly if not very cold. Even if your freezer is at absolute zero it will still take time for the heat to leak out.
Looks like it that I have to put my plans to start farming in Greenland for another year on ice.
Ever since profit Gore made his predictions I have been working on reclaiming the ancestral farm there.
When oh when.
I can also observe that since the max on March 14, MASIE shows increases in ice extent in the Central Arctic and Barents Sea, offset by losses in Baffin-Gulf of St. Lawrence, Bering Sea and Baltic Sea.
One of the main components of ice extent is the wind. For much of the winter the winds have been pushing ice towards land areas. This thickens the ice but also leads to lower winter time extents. The most recent extent increase was due to a change in the wind that pushed some of it towards ocean areas.
The winds will also be a major factor in the summer minimum. Unless they start pushing ice out into the N. Atlantic we will likely see a higher minimum due to the overall increase in multi-year ice from last year as well as the increases in thickness over the past winter.
“Kenny says: I wonder what all this will look like after the melt season. Is it possible for the AO to stay negative through the summer? I read somewhere that a very strong possitive AO drove a lot of ice out of the Arctic Ocean several years ago. Could we see a repeat?”
THREE MONTH running mean through Feb 2014
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/month_ao_index.shtml
Here is the Daily through the winter
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html