CapitalistImperialistPig

At the end of May, Arctic sea ice extent was nearly 1 million km^2 less than in the record low year of 2012, and some Chicken Littles began prophesying the end of Arctic ice this summer. Cooler heads noted that it was still early, and that weather still had to be heard from. May and June seem to be crucial to setting up a big Arctic melt, as the formation of melt ponds decreases albedo and increases absorption of the big time insolation in June and July. Despite the big lead in ice extent, May ended with only modest melt ponding, and June has proved cool and cloudy in the Arctic. The cloud cover blocks the Sun just when it's highest in the sky, and instead of insolation the Arctic gets insulation. Unsurprisingly, the big lead 2016 had in ice extent and ice area (disappearance) has largely vanished, even briefly turning negative, but for the last week or so 2016 has kept a small lead. So what about that ice vanishing thing? It's the probability of an ice free Arctic thi...

If forecasts for the next week verify, most of the snow in Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, and Siberia will be gone next week. Much of the snow on the Arctic ice cap will also melt. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice area and extent are tracking at record lows. From Arctic Sea Ice Forum (Jim Pettit): ADS-NIPR Extent: 10,880,319 km2 (23 May) Down 3,062,188 km2 (21.96%) from 2016 maximum of 13,942,507 km2 on 29 February. 7,702,864 km2 above record minimum extent of 3,177,455 km2 (16 September 2012). Down 43,644 km2 (-.4%) from previous day. Down 317,590 km2 (-2.84%) over past seven days (daily average: -45,370 km2). Down 1,413,128 km2 (-11.55%) for May (daily average: -61,440 km2). 1,126,654 km2 below 2000s average for this date. 708,050 km2 below 2010s average for this date. 436,128 km2 below 2015 value for this date. 1,007,308 km2 below 2012 value for this date. ... CT Area: 9,896,835 km2 (24 May [Day 0.3917]) Down 3,024,523 km2 (23.41%) from 2016 maximum of 12,921,358 km2 on 29 March [Day...

It's getting hard to find any part of the Arctic not scheduled to get torched in the next 7-10 days. First the Beaufort and Chuckchi and then the Barents, Kara, and Laptev seas get the blowtorch treatment. The Central Arctic Basin may also see a bit of melting. Greenland gets torched at the rate of 10-15 C above normal, not enough to get the central highlands melting, but the southern edges should get a light toasting. The Bering and Okhotzk are history. The Canadian Archipelago and Hudson will also get lightly browned.

A blast of abnormally warm air is expected to push into the snow covered areas of Eastern Siberia and the Barents, Kara and Laptev Seas early next week. Simultaneously Greenland, Alaska, and the Bering and Chukchi Seas will also get toasted. Even the Beaufort Sea, which is currently full of cracked and broken ice, courtesy of a strong Beaufort Gyre, should get some above zero (C) melt time. If May is anything like April, a big melt might be in the works. From Climate Reanalyzer.

It's been a freakishly warm start to the year - the warmest in the modern record. The last few weeks have been blowtorch times in the Arctic, with unprecedentedly early Greenland melting and breakup of sea ice. It's early, and weather is still the ultimate player, but early signs for Arctic ice are not good. Both Atlantic and Pacific sides have a lot of weak ice, and early snow melt in Alaska threatens to speed things up in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Of course it doesn't help our clarity that the prime sensor for sea ice, the DMSP F17 37 GHz channel has gone out, but it could be an interesting year.

Fans of Cryosphere Today have seen some funky stuff lately, including bizarre spikes in Arctic sea ice right when melting should be getting underway. This has prompted some of the usual idiots/professional climate liars to proclaim a welcome resurgence in sea ice. Of course if they look at the Antarctic sea ice, where an even more startling freezing season plummet of 1.5 million km^2 is shown, they would be less impressed. What has actually happened, aside from the people at Urbana-Champaign being asleep at the switch, is more in line with the laws of thermodynamics, especially that second one. A key ice sensing channel of the DMSP F17 satellite has failed, and it is sending back bad data. The satellite has been in orbit since 2006, so this is hardly shocking. The F18 is up there, and is currently having its corresponding sensors calibrated, so we should eventually have good data from it. In the meantime, there is some not perfectly corresponding data from other satellites, and...

Arctic ice area and extent have been hovering at or near near record lows, mainly because warm storms have been steered into the Arctic taking temperatures in the East to very warm levels. The next week or more will be colder, giving the ice what is likely a last chance to increase. In April, melting season will begin in earnest. As of now, there is a lot of thin ice and open water in the Eastern Arctic. Will that be important for this year's melt season? TBD.

A cold front came through yesterday - I almost wished I had put on a long sleeved shirt or maybe even a jacket while I was walking around campus. A big change from the 80 F plus days we had been having. Meanwhile in the Arctic, the temperature today is almost 7 C warmer than the mean for this time of year, and some places it's 20 C above normal. Not coincidentally, sea ice for this time of year is more than 1.5 million km^2 below the modern mean , a record and by a bunch. At this time of year, we can usually expect 3 to 5 weeks more of Arctic sea ice increase, but it has been decreasing for twelve days now and a big recovery doesn't look in the cards. Should we expect a record melt this year? Too early to say, but it surely could be like that.