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2014 Greenland melt season discussion thread


The_Global_Warmer

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Interesting new paper on the warming around Greenland and adjacent NE Canada:

 

 

 

Abstract

 

 

Rapid Arctic warming and sea-ice reduction in the Arctic Ocean are widely attributed to anthropogenic climate change. The Arctic warming exceeds the global average warming because of feedbacks that include sea-ice reduction and other dynamical and radiative feedbacks. We find that the most prominent annual mean surface and tropospheric warming in the Arctic since 1979 has occurred in northeastern Canada and Greenland. In this region, much of the year-to-year temperature variability is associated with the leading mode of large-scale circulation variability in the North Atlantic, namely, the North Atlantic Oscillation. Here we show that the recent warming in this region is strongly associated with a negative trend in the North Atlantic Oscillation, which is a response to anomalous Rossby wave-train activity originating in the tropical Pacific. Atmospheric model experiments forced by prescribed tropical sea surface temperatures simulate the observed circulation changes and associated tropospheric and surface warming over northeastern Canada and Greenland. Experiments from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (ref. 16) models with prescribed anthropogenic forcing show no similar circulation changes related to the North Atlantic Oscillation or associated tropospheric warming. This suggests that a substantial portion of recent warming in the northeastern Canada and Greenland sector of the Arctic arises from unforced natural variability.

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7499/full/nature13260.html

 

http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/nature-paper-half-of-arctic-warming-due-to-pacific-variations.html

 

 

 

It's a good paper on how both the natural variation of the Pacific and AGW has influenced the warming there.

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It's still early and a lot of details have to shake our for sure.  But after 4-5 days of surface ridging with an SLP South of GIS. The models are very big on developing a very strong ridge and parking it over GIS.

 

 

 

It's way way to early for temp charts because climo/albedo/ssta issues this far out and subject to change.

 

Never the less this set up verbatim would totally smoke GIS after the lowest 1200M or so is getting really primed for melt the next 4-5 days.

 

 

This prolonged -NAO and potentially large H5 Ridge would have GIS set up going into late May and early June for major positive feedback melting.

 

 

We will have to wait and see how this plays out.

 

 

 

Y3udByX.gif

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The 2014 GIS Summer melt season is about 48 hours from exploding out of the gate.

 

We can see below there has been some melting to offset some of the recent gains. 

 

 

gYR22PB.png?1

 

 

 

More importantly after a couple of normal to below normal days.  A large ridge builds over GIS and a huge warmup takes place.

 

Conditions over the Southern 1/3rd of GIS are going to quickly deteriorate.  On top of that the waters to the SW, S, and SE of GIS will warm up a lot.  Which obviously lets the low level air hold more heat and moisture then it normally would.

 

SSTA in those regions are already 2C+ in most areas.

 

 

L1a5swe.gif

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SLThey also updated the daily model.

it shows essentially no melt so far.

some one from the site posts on nevins blog. I think its jason box. Not sure.

Basically the melt water now cant reach the ocean because its embedded in the snow. Apparently the model keeps an inventory of daily conditions and will incorporate the melting now into lnto loss later, in summer

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Nasty

 

I am sure marriatawx will be along shortly for the play by play.

 

 

 

 

 

It has begun:

 

I don't think it's going to spike that high over the next week.  Maybe 20 percent at the most one day which would probably be today if that happens, we will see.  But the melt percentage will likely stay above normal for the foreseeable future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well that was disappointing.....

 

 

greenland_melt_area_plot.jpg

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NSIDC updated some reviews of last years melt season NAO FTW?

http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/

GrnToday_Fig4_15May.png

Weather patterns were significantly different over Greenland during 2013 compared to 2012,  when high temperatures led to extensive melt. A dominant Arctic climate pattern, the North Atlantic Oscillation (Figure 4), was in its positive phase for the summer months (June through August) of 2013, sharply contrasting with a trend that had held for the previous six summers. As discussed in NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis on September 17, 2013, the positive phase of the NAO favors anticyclonic circulation over Greenland. The NAO generally produces warm and dry conditions over Europe and is associated with cooler and higher-precipitation conditions in Greenland and the central Arctic.

 

GrnToday_Fig6_19May1.png

The 2013 summer in Greenland also saw a reversal of the recent trend in summertime loss of surface snow and ice mass by run-off, as would be expected given the reduced melting. Figure 3 illustrates the relative melt area departure from the average (sum of the daily melt areas over the ice sheet for June, July, and August in each year, with the average area for 1978 to 2013 subtracted). The very large increase in 2012 is clearly shown, as is the return during 2013 to conditions typical of the late 1990s.

 

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Later today it starts and goes on and on. 

 

 

Rtavn362.gif

 

 

 

If that happens that is a 3000M freeze level over SW GIS anything in the 1500M or below which is where the dirty ice is will be uncovered by then and this will be nasty.

 

Rtavn1562.gif

 

 

 

 

This is subject to change but when the 10C 850s are showing up on both coasts and the high mtns in Southern GIS there will be melt from the West to the East even at the 2850M peak in SGIS. 

 

 

The models show this massive torch indefinitely at this point.

 

Rtavn1802.gif

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I'm very interested on Greenland mass losses over the next decade.  I think the implications of the ever increasing trend of GIS losses are probably more important than Arctic Sea Ice.

 

Without a doubt.

 

This season is about to abruptly explode into huge melt all over GIS.

 

This is way worse than having one side being super scorched because all of the glacial terminus regions at the ice edge which is typically below 500M are going to be torched.

 

The dirty ice layer is about to be exposed and is going to be huge and dark within a week.

 

Models showing 10C 1500M temps still over Western and parts of SE GIS at times the next 10 days.

 

With big time sun like today.

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