Gray-Wolf

https://aliran.com/web-specials/a-tipping-point-is-playing-out-right-now-says-climate-scientist-michael-mann/

I tend to think we'd be far better placed to be dealing with the climate crisis had the likes of Mann/Hansen been listened to in the late 80's/early 90's rather than allow them to be mauled by the paid climate change Deniers for the last 2 decades? As China rapidly cleans up its polluting we are finding that 'La Nada' years can now challenge Super Nino years for global temp records?..... had we only listened to Hansen's warnings about the amount of warming that was being 'masked' by the Global Dimming a rapidly industrialising China provided we would not be scratching our heads as to 'how' a La Nada year can grab second warmest global year with only a super nino bettering its efforts.... With China showing no signs of letting up on its headlong charge to scrub all emissions we will pretty soon find out how much of that 0.68 C (that Hansen suggested was being 'masked' by Dimming?) will drop in on top of the year on year global temp rises..... Had we taken note of Mann's concerns about the Arctic we might not now be facing the peril of a Blue Ocean Event over the coming decade (& the 25 yrs worth of warming it would dump into the climate system over a single year?) but 'No!' , the empty vessels go and fill up at WUWT and bang their drum good and loud wherever they're able.... Those Stalactites, in their Siberian caves, make it plain that 1.5c above pre-industrial costs us the permafrost (and brings about a resumption in their growth as liquid water again flows over them....) So we're at 1.2 C above pre-industrial (with 0.68 C possibly waiting to put in an appearance as soon as the Sulphates/Particulates allow) and the Arctic lurching ever closer to delivering another 25 yrs worth of warming over a single year should we see the B.O.E. made flesh........ Yup! should have paid attention to them and their like for decades now instead of choosing the B.A.U. pathway whilst the Climate Change Deniers wailed....

It's another cynical manipulation of the general public aimed at leaving folk 'unalarmed' by the fires (as it's not 'definitely AGW' driving the conditions that increasingly allow for such to occur so 'no worries'?) As long as folk 'Think' the jury's still out on the peril we are ambling into (via our polluting of the planet/atmosphere) then their 'fight or flight' responses will not be triggered and so the 'Mass Movement' of folk globally demanding for radical actions to 'mitigate' all that we already have coming will not occur...... and so the folk 'profiting' from The Many not 'recognising the crisis' continue on B.A.U. There will come the first of the (to us public?) 'Black Swan Events' that does trigger most folks 'fight or flight' responses......

Were it not for the demands of 'Unfettered Capitalism' would we find ourselves facing the monumental challenges we face today? Were there not gains to be made from 'Climate Change Denial' would we still be facing such an uphill struggle to convince 'The Many' of the real & present dangers the change now ushers in? It appears , to me, that the climate change denial industrial has utilised aspects of man's polluting to shrink the probable impacts of unfettered capitalism on our climate to such a scale that 'Business as Usual' (B.A.U.) has continued un-molested by the starkest sets of warnings yet from our Climate Scientists? Sadly it appears (to me) that this use of mans impacts to support denial is at an end? The flip positive , in 2014, of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation save Antarctic sea ice extent/area plummet back to levels last seen in the late 70's/early 80's The 'mending' of the 'Ozone Hole' coinciding with this flip in the IPO seems to have been instrumental in this sudden 'flip' in sea ice behaviour but also in allowing behaviours in the polar night jet over Antarctica that we had become accustomed to seeing in the N. Hemisphere? This years SSW over Antarctica is now being held as part responsible for the temps, & so the wildfires over Australia & possibly feeding into the ocean 'hot spot' to the East of New Zealand? With China now taking its air pollution issues seriously the drop of in global dimming ,esp the regions directly downwind of China, must also be seeing impact? Areas of the Pacific that has been 'dimmed out' are now surely feeling the impacts of the sulphates/particulates being 'washed out' of the atmosphere above? To me this says that the last 'drag factors' in the speed of climate shift have been lost? The 'Naturals' are now mainly augmenting AGW & the manmade negatives (Global dimming/Ozone hole) are falling away. We were already sailing pretty close to a number of tipping points, be it carbon sink failure/reversal to 'Methane Burps' to mechanical collapse of ice sheet margins, so will this sudden acceleration in AGW prove too much so leading to tipping points being breached, or worse, climate cascades as one events promotes further events downstream? You just have to hope that 2020 will bring '2020 vision on climate' to the masses & that they rise and demand meaningful action to not only be spoken about but to be initiated!!!

We currently appear to be seeing the 'southern hemisphere' catching up with the events we have been seeing in the North for well over a decade with the development of a 'Hot Spot' to the east of New Zealand over recent months? Again a stubborn HP system has slowed the normal overturning of the surface allowing temps up to 6c above average for the time of year to develop.

I think the badly stressed/fractured ice means we can no longer get the scale 'meltponding' we saw back in 2012? There are too many 'drain points' in the ice these days This does not mean 'other factors' have now taken up that slack and so preconditioned the ice for melt? The reduction in flow size by 'bottom melt' end of the season now means 'side melt' takes ever more of the floe compared with the old multi km floes where ,compared with the 'bottom melt', such losses were negligible? The ice itself is making itself ever easier to melt more ice for the same amount of energy!

i think many folk give GAC12 too much credit for the losses over Aug that year ( sure it had impact) but the ice was already pretty messed before it struck? Todays ice is pretty messed up so let's see what happens eh?

Sadly many folk are now accepting the NeoLib capitalism is responsible for our wasteful assaults on our natural world and its resources but also that that global economics holds no solutions for our climate crisis either? Those with most to gain from the current system are also the ones who have the most power over our world under this planet killing system? They will not go anywhere near far enough to helping mitigate the woes to come but appear almost welcoming of it as a way to 'slim down' global population whilst leaving them firmly in control of a world that will then resume its consuming ways post the 'great dying'? If you still have not seen enough to show you that only a globally concerted effort will be enough to start solving this nightmare then you do not have long to wait to find yourself so convinced. Just hope it's not your hometown that is targeted by Mother N. in the next big advert for how bad things already are (with 35 yrs 'worsening ' already dialed into the climate system even it we halt polluting tomorrow!)

Melting , via the oceans warmth, overtakes the failing solar surface melt around this time of year I believe? Problem is ,as floes get smaller, there comes a size where 'side melt' overtakes bottom melt in the losses produced? ( I think the magic size is 100m across?) meaning even faster loss of the ice for the same energies available.

We now have a warm low headed over siberia increasing the pressure grad there pluss all the heat from NW Europe is bound for Greenland/Atlantic side of the basin. Folk need to look at the near real time sat images to see just how messy some areas of the ice are! Any extra heat input is just going to take out the ice rubble in rapid order leaving isolated floes in open water just in time for 'bottom melt' end of the season to kick in. Not looking good at all

How much ice volume do some folk want to see go before they accept that the past half century is way out there in terms of the last long period of time?

JAXA extent hits rock bottom for the 7th. That is both NSIDC and JAXA with us at rock bottom and the ESS is such a mess I think we will see continued high losses for a while yet? Then we have Beaufort chewing on the ice that 'relaxed' into it from the C.A.B. Interesting Times

We have a pack that PIOMAS tells us is the 'least ice' at this time of the year. We have NSIDC telling us area is at an all time low for the date and NSIDC also tell us 'compactness' is also low. Ice with water all around it is vulnerable with none of the environmental support of fellow ice floes. With so much FY ice out there ,and all of a similar thickness, are we about to see a July 'Cliff' with no equal?

There has been a lot of losses in the basin via ice floating into 'hostile ' areas that have been open water since the start of melt season. The Heat already in these Ocean areas will continue to impact area/extent even if we lose the sun and , worse still, see the ice under low pressure forcings? Any presence of ripples/waves increases the uptake in solar and reduces the amount of energy bounced back into space. Mill pond calm and cloudy/cool is what we need but I do not think any of the weather models are offering up that? It appears that all melt season the Arctic has been intent on spilling all of its cold south and accepting WAA after WAA. Now there is no cold left and the areas blighted by the polar plunges are warming via imports from their neighbours not so blighted? The season may slow over the basin but I think the continental areas to the South will be amassing plenty heat waiting for the slightest opportunity to go dump it in the basin! In a few weeks time we enter the 'bottom melt dominated' part of the season and we will see if the sub 100m floes do go at rapid speeds with their side melt taking most of their ice ( and warming the ice inside the floe from heat entering from the base/sides and , possibly, top)

We have a bit of an issue with temps being taken over big areas of the Arctic/Africa with the Arctic being the area with the potential of 'upping' the global average esp. with a record warm season like this one? Was it Cowtan and Wray(sp?) that modelled with the Arctic/African data in and it showed us no 'pause' over the noughties and us on target for the temp rises we expected? My 'OMG' moment will come when the summer 'Latent heat of fusion' pegged 'DMI 80N' plot suddenly lurches upward as open water begins to dominate modelled 2m temps over those controlled by melting ice? Every other season of the year sees DMI take some pretty big positive excursions so there is only the 'flatline ' summer that has not....... this year maybe?

I think many folk are unaware of just what a shift such a change is? We go from 90%+ of the incoming solar to the 'dark water' accepting 90%+ of all incoming solar.......but there's more! That <10% if solar over the ice needs to spend 70 cals of energy to melt 1cm 3 of ice When the ice has gone then over 90% of that incoming goes into warming water. If we put the 70 cals into a q1cm cube of water it would raise the temp to 70c!!! So 9 times as much energy arriving at the surface and 1cm of ice warmed 1c for every 1 cal poured into it! I view it as 'new energy' in our climate system and can see ,full well, why Jen Francis sees it making such havoc at seasons end when that energy is released back into the atmosphere prior to the ocean freezing! " When the ice goes it will just , all of a sudden,go" With the pack's average thickness at max. around 2m we have the potential to see, over late July/Aug, a lot of ice 'suddenly go' as accrued melt momentum and warmed ocean takes out all ice of similar thickness over a short period of time ( FY ice?)

I do not think we believe 'North of Greenland' as the refuge we once did? In 2012 we saw ice modelled at 5m thick go over that summer ( and the MacKenzie delta turn positively mediterranean!) then , more recently we saw the 'Feb lift off' leaving open water along that strip in mid winter. If anything 'N. Greenland ' is wherer ice waits to be exported? If Nares has been open all winter then the lincoln Sea supply of thick ice is depleted so eventually we have no ice to replace that going down the Fram. The upcoming Di-pole might be an interesting watch to see how far into the body of the pack ice moves toward Fram? As for Beaufort/ESS/Laptev/Kara?........well, just shows what thin fragmented ice acts like when impacted by either WAA from the land or warmed river waters. Another big loss day today opening more water for ice to flow into ( and not impact the numbers much if they were already over 15% ice covered) but that water is ever warmer as the season progresses and the more isolated the floe the more energy that water pours into it......leaving more open water for ice to flow into.......rinse and repeat

This is where our 'Banker ice' , to the North of Greenland, shows us that it will not be the last of the ice left in the basin. The clearing out of the grounded 'fast ice' , along Greenlands North shore and NE tip ( back in 2012?) leaves nothing to slow/stop the export of the smaller floes that the ice north of Greenland consists of today. Some folk may well be surprised at just how mobile that ice area can become given the correct forcing? And still the 'high melt' forcing continues over swathes of the basin. The folk who only work with the numbers may be wholly ignorant of the losses in ice volume the June 'mid month' PIOMAS numbers meant in terms of thinning of the pack overall. We have very little 2m ice left in the basin presently and a lot clumped around the 1m thickness mark. To me , should we see a continuation throughout the high insolation period, all that ice is done. If we then look at a map of the ice we see it is the N of Greenland that holds the ice not progged to melt, well, not in-situ anyway....... should it take a shove toward the Atlantic then all bets are off!!!.......

I think the move toward a more 'fragmented pack' leaves it all open to rapid transit if forcings arise. Currently the models are looking at a di-pole setting up so we should see gains in Barentsz/Greenland seas over the coming weeks as ice is thrown into the N.Atlantic. To me part of the conditioning for a seasonal pack we have seen this past 5 years has been this mover to ever more fragmented, so mobile, ice. Even our older floes are riddled with scars of past fragmentation so have inbuilt weaknesses where 'new ice' glued the floe back together. Both the low resilience of the 'glue ice ' and mechanical weathering ( jostling with other floes?) will see this pack become ever more broken up and heading for the 'less than 100m' sized floes where the side melt , not bottom melt, becomes the largest area of loss via ocean warmth taking floes out ever faster. As for 0% chance of a blue ocean event ( less than 1 million sq km)? Never say never eh? Changes to the pack has seemingly done away with the June cliff in favour of June 'Gains' as the central ice fragments and flows into open waters. Such ice is doomed and goes to fuel the July cliff where both it, and peripheral areas, are rapidly melting out. Todays century losses on JAXA may prove an early start to this 'cliff' ( due to recent high temps over sections of the pack?) Again I would suggest that the folk relying on numbers alone take a comparative look at today's pack alongside other years for this date?

I find it odd to be comparing such different ice packs with our current pack? In 2007 we still had paleocryistic ice in the basin and included in that year ice min figures. 08' and 09' had their final numbers plumped up by the collapse and spread of the last of this type of ice before its removal from the basin in 2010. in 2012 prof Barber introduced 'rotten ice' into the sea ice classification The ice since 2012 has progressively become younger , more fragmented and thinner. Much of the ice in today's basin would melt out/rapidly be exported under 2007 forcings. As it is much of the ice that saw ice max with only 2m thickness has been under high melt conditions for a while now and most areas are seeing ready fragmentation ( so opening of dark water around the floes). As sat images also show most of the basin ice from pole to Barentsz had been flushed into Fram before melt season began (and Nares gobbled up Lincoln sea ice) leaving late grown FY as a replacement. This pack began this melt season warmer/more fragmented/thinner than any pack thus far. Proof of this will come when the 2m ice goes 'poof' at some point in late July. Then we will have a lot of open water and less ice cover. Any storms entering/growing in the basin will put extra melt pressures on the remaining ice through swell/waves and the overwash/tumbling the ice fragments will see. Not only do we have a good shot a 3rd lowest and above but also, should the right combination of weathers present, a B.O.E ( IMHO)

I'm seeing developments over the ice as very worrying right now. The numbers may not be currently showing it but the ice is taking a real battering and I think this will begin to present over July when sub 2m ice blinks out. By the start of Aug the bulk of the 2m ice ( majority of our ice at max?) will fail and go. The foundations of this 'cliff' are being laid now by the aggressive melt across many sea ice areas? 'Melt momentum' takes a lot to suppress and , unlike 07'/2012, we had open waters around our ocean entrances from the get go? The warming , all season, of the waters in these area merely aid the imported warm/salty waters to maintain temp as they push in toward the central basin. These 'kill zones' mean any late season weather ( lows) can scatter ice into these 'new' zones of ice destruction so take ice that used to survive until re-freeze. We saw some of this behaviour in 2012 when the line just kept falling at rates not seen before that late in the season. So in basin 'kill zones' and sub 100m ice floes will add a difference to late melt season losses so we may have seen the 'June Cliff' fade with 'collapse and spread' causing us to see 'upticks' in ice cover where once we saw rapid losses ( when the central ice was still continuous floes so did not 'collapse and spread') But every glint of open water sees that remarkable switcheroo from 90% energy reflected back into space to 90% of the energy gobbled up by the ocean? so the central pack , over peak insolation is offering up a new heat dump for the solar now the pack is so thin and fragmented as to 'collapse and spread' in June. I've also heard folk bemoan the low angle of the sun and infer reflection of the incoming solar right back into space. Only if the ocean surface were mill pond calm as any ripples present a steeper angle for that incoming solar to strike ( think of German vineyards on the southern facing slopes?) so that 24hr sun's massive amount of energy is getting gobbled up right now ready to melt out the ice and delay re-freeze before flooding the autumn arctic atmosphere with warm , moist air, to mess with the set up of the polar night Jet and begin another torrid autumn/early winter for lower lats.

I think that , since the first Feb crackopalypse event in 2013, the large floes that used to hold extensive melt ponding have gone in favour of smaller individual floes that drain readily into the ocean. No sooner had we sorted out a way of using the melt pond extent we lose it due to further changes in the basin! But yes , melt ponds and certain low level cloud type will fool sensors into seeing ice ( as will 'overwash' during choppy weather) but this 15% or more measure really does give scope for 'misdirection' from some who demand no real change to the basin since 2013. All you can do is direct folk to sat imagery and ask them to compare shots for the same date of the year with the 'numbers' that are meant to capture that moment. If you think that in year 1 the grid square could be 99% ice covered and so = 'ice covered' Year 2 could be 75% ice covered and still ='ice covered' Year 3 could be 40% ice covered yet still ='ice covered' Year 4 could be 20% ice covered yet still= 'ice covered' Year 5 could be 16% ice covered yet still ='ice covered' Only on year 6 when ice cover goes below 15% do we see change as the grid square will then show 'ice free' You can see that year 1 is very different to year 5 but to the algorithm they equate as 'equal' With both the year on year degradation of the pack overall and this years extreme conditions some folk could be in for a big shock in late July/early Aug as the ice starting around 2m thick blinks out en masse

I'd caution your confidence over this matter esp when dealing with a measuring system that takes a 3.5km grid square and calls it 'fully ice covered' when 15% covered? The system in use by NSIDC and others was invented to better capture the 'ice edge' and not to best capture the type of central basin ice we have seen evolve since 2012? The reality ( for those who can be bothered to look ) is visible on any of the visible satellite platforms with vast areas nothing more than 'slush puppy' rubble studded with small floes. We have been heading to this point over half a decade with the numbers showing a very 'stable picture' of sea ice come ice min whereas a combination of winter conditioning and ever less ice has placed us at a point where high heat at max insolation will drive both melt and ocean warming leaving a very precarious 'bottom melt' 1/3rd of the season with isolated floes and warm 'kill zones' where the ocean has been under full sun since ice max? The apparent disappearance of the 'June cliff' should tell folks something surely? This year again we saw 'gains' over a few days in June. Do folk really think this was 'real' new ice or a fragmenting ,spreading ,pack triggering the 15% or more rule for empty peripheral squares? When floes fall below 100m the 'side melt' becomes greater than the bottom melt so floes go 'poof' real quick. We'd better hope that ice rubble isn't just that eh?

Things we do not regularly see are the warming of the base of the ice sheet and the amount of liquid water held in the snow pack. Both these physical realities could lead to rapid and catastrophic changes to the ice sheet and treat us to the 'saddle & lobe' type of melt that took the last ice sheets at the end of the last glaciation. The 'swiss cheese' nature of the base of the pack must pose a threat of internal collapse and so hasten further basal erosion of the ice as more surface area is presented to the inundating, pressurised, melt waters? The weight of liquid water in the snow layer must pose a threat of collapse under gravity if its weight becomes unsustainable bringing large amounts of snow down to lower, melt region, areas?

For those who have not being paying close attention to either the denaturing of the pack this past 6 years, or the ice that has already exited Fram this melt season ,there may be a few surprises in the offing over the next 2 months? We have not seen the basin under such forcings for a number of years but the ice is no longer what it was the last time we did see such. I'm expecting a late June/July cliff in extent/area this year as we see 'new ice' blink out in large amounts opening up more area for the last of the peak insolation. I get the feeling we will be challenging the lowest ice years come late Aug.....