csnavywx

The constant re-re-re-reposting of this zombie topic got me wondering. How many people actually believe this stuff? It's pretty surprising. Didn't realize how prominent this belief has become (30-40% of the US): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-017-0014-3 The above paper gives some stats and background on the conspiracy theory that SS subscribes to. Particularly interesting is how it cuts across ideological lines with roughly equal proportions. The Guardian did a piece on this last year, too: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/22/california-conspiracy-theorist-farmers-chemtrails WaPo did one in 2015 as well. They make a decent argument about it providing a hint at how people would react to a real geoengineering attempt (such as stratospheric sulfates): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/01/22/how-a-group-of-conspiracy-theorists-could-derail-the-debate-over-climate-policy/?utm_term=.8d80e6d346a0 SS has all the hallmarks of a "true believer" -- labeling anybody who disagrees as a "shill" or mentally defective in some way. It's irony at its finest.

SMB doesn't account for calving and discharge at the periphery, which is significant. Despite the cooler conditions, this surface melt season is still above the 1981-2010 average and with the oncoming melt in the next week or two, it will probably remain so for this season. The 2012 melt season was exceptional and doesn't (yet) represent the norm. When we get to the point where SMB can't crack positive (as it almost did that year), it'll represent the non-viability of the ice sheet in the long term and a permanent shift to widespread net ablation. I suspect that will happen consistently when we lose sea ice in the late summer.

How has this embarrassing thread not been deleted? It's a stain on the board that was created for science and we all aid and abet the drivel posted here by continuing to tolerate its presence.

Bluewave, You posted this paper earlier and the post is gone: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14375 I meant to comment on it earlier but ran out of time that day. It's definitely an interesting and concerning paper. I've read it a couple of times before. I'm not sure that's what's going on here, as it seems that most of the cooling was from diabatic heat loss, but the mechanisms mentioned in the paper are definitely a concern down the road. It looks like most of the ones that predict deep ocean convection collapse in the SPG target right around mid-century. The SPG collapse happens almost regardless of emissions path too (happens in 2.6 and 8.5). The fact that only the higher skill models do it and it happens regardless of emissions scenario does set off an alarm bell that they might be on to something. The authors obviously thought so as well. It's interesting that the earlier paper you linked (from 2012) showed some SPG instability that the authors dismissed as a 'freak occurrence'. Perhaps not?

The flip side to this is the fact that the record +AO still isn't enough to get a recovery to pre-2007 levels -- only enough to mostly cover for the higher winter temps. You may be right that when we look back, 2007 may have been the most important point in the entire sequence. I'm sure we'll get to some point where extent drops out rapidly towards zero in late Aug in the future, but the biggest change was probably the Beaufort gyre turning from a nursery for ice to a MYI graveyard. That change looks irreversible at this point.

After extensive issues with deer and my gardens and fields over the years (including bramble-berries like raspberries and blackberries), I have some strong advice for you: Do two fences, spaced 3' apart and make the inner one taller -- say 6 or 7 ft. If you want, string some hot wire in there to make it even more effective. I had 5 strands of electric fence (3 inner and 2 outer) and that finally stopped ALL deer activity inside my plot. They'll jump the first one but the limited space and being surrounded by barriers spooks them and they never make or even take the second jump. It worked wonders for me. It's a lot of extra up-front effort, but it'll put a dead stop to that nonsense.

While there isn't much of a trend from '40-'17, there certainly is from 1980 onwards and it's decidedly positive. Aerosols have a big part to play in that dip from the 40s to the 70s.

Yikes, just no. Sure, it was too warm last year but it has been too cool this year and during 2015's Nino. That's not "too warm, consistently". That insinuates a warm bias in the model, which doesn't exist. The big difference this year is that the Nina standing wave/forcing has dissipated. It never did last year, even when the EPac got warm for a while. That lends confidence to a warmer solution. Too early to call a Modoki. A real Modoki will typically have a neutral to negative anomaly in Nino 1+2. That isn't supported by modeling and the ongoing EKW right now, especially with the rare EPAC WWB last month. I know you snow weenies want a weak Modoki Nino, but that's far from being in the bag right now. Remember the rash of "Modoki" calls during 2015? Yeah, that didn't even come close to working out.

After digging further, it looks like 2013's SST pattern had more in common with 2009 (i.e. cooler interludes in an otherwise warm phase). The real shift appears to have taken place over the following winter: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-015-2819-3 http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/7/074004 Leads to this paper (both previous papers cited in this one): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-11046-x The particularly interesting part of that last paper (from 2017) is how deep the strong OHC anomalies extend (down past 1000m). As the paper mentions, it's going to take a lot to erase that:

Also of interest -- the CANSIPS, which showed a slow melt season (via MSLP anomalies) many months ago is showing the same pattern next season already -- with a strong -AO pattern in spring transitioning into another strong +AO summer. It has cold SPG/NATL temps staying in place as it did this year.

The EPS and GEFS out to 10 days show some hefty cold anomalies as well and a pole-centered TPV. This year could certainly make a run at 2013 or even 2009 at this point.

EOSDIS Worldview supports this. The pack looks visually much closer to 2009/2013. There's more ponding than those two years, but less than every other year back to '07. With the upcoming TPV pattern setting in again, this year has a good shot of ending up around 5M, despite the low starting volume. The HADGEM1 paper linked earlier is pretty interesting. They state that they think the SPG weakening is a freak occurrence in the model, but the higher skill-score models tend towards SPG convection collapse a lot more than the CMIP5 median. The result is a stronger version of what we're seeing now, which is a very strong cold SST anomaly south of Greenland. This year has been especially impressive, with -2 to -4C anomalies over the entire SPG region and surrounding areas. Interestingly, the CESM4 shows this stall in temperature in the summer through the late 2020s as well, followed by a relatively rapid increase thereafter. In addition to some of the mechanisms listed in the paper(s) above., I think some of this is also related to increases in snow depth in the surrounding land areas, especially on the Siberian side. These past few much warmer winters have resulted in unusual amounts of snowfall, which have helped retard early season melt-out and peripheral ponding. This is all fairly temporary of course. As long as external forcing continues to increase at the current rate (3-4ppm CO2e/yr), it will eventually overwhelm these other factors and cause the pack to collapse regardless. Still on target for the 2030s, imo, even with a stall through the 2020s.

Well, this "shill" thinks the "technical term" you're looking for is a dust devil. It's pretty clear that there wasn't much dust to pick up in this case, however. Soil moisture obviously isn't suffering with all that greenery around. It's otherwise an ideal environment for it. Dry air, clear skies and a very deep mixing layer. The extremely high bases on the fair weather cu (probably 7+ kft to this observer's eye) are a clue to that.

Strong -AD at the moment with colder temps towards the CAA/Beaufort and blowtorch conditions on the Russian half of the basin. Ponding is getting widespread over there on the latest worldview imagery showing strong melting penetrating pretty deep into the snow-covered areas of the basin. Dprog/dt is characteristically high for this time of the year, but a strong rex block near/over the CAA appears likely to develop soon in conjunction with the Laptev block. Depending on placement, there may or may not be some penetration of strong melt conditions into the heart of the central basin in the next week. The upside is the lack of strong export and relatively cold conditions for the Beaufort and Chukchi (which need a break given the extremely weak ice front in the Chukchi atm).

PDO is neutral this year and may go slightly negative, so I don't think that's going to be as big of an influence. That Atlantic SST pattern is really something else and points towards what bluewave is talking about. Although, that SST pattern is also favorable for periodic rex blocking over or just east of Greenland (towards Iceland) and an enhanced storm track south of Greenland overall (which we may incidentally see some of in the coming week). That also favors keeping troughing near the Kara/Barents area. While this doesn't translate into a 2007/2012 or a mega-dipole type pattern it is warmer than the past few years, contingent on how the Pacific behaves. We'll have to see what kind of ponding the upcoming event on the Pacific side will generate as we're entering the critical period for that area. https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/ is a great tool for looking for the general progress of melt ponding. Last year, the CAB remained snow-covered late into the season, which limited the melt.