When we will see an ice free arctic?

[LithiaWx]

Simple poll, when do you think we will see the first ice free sea ice extent minimum?

Defined as less than 1,000,000km2

[the moors in england]

the canadian archipelago will never be ice free. 

[CAD_Wedge_NC]

Simple poll, when do you think we will see the first ice free sea ice extent minimum?

Defined as less than 1,000,000km2

 

With the flip of the AMO, I believe we will see a recovery of sorts over the next few decades.

[ORH_wxman]

I chose 2031-2040, but I could easily see it later than that...or even a bit earlier. Its hard to gauge how all the feedbacks work together. There are clearly negative feedbacks involved (despite some insisting there aren't) along with positive feedbacks. The ocean loses more heat back to the atmosphere in the autumn with less ice which promotes extremely rapid ice growth...however, more first year ice makes the entire system more vulnerable to weather patterns like 2007 and 2012.

 

A lot will depend on the weather if we are to get an ice free minimum extent within the next decade or so. We'd probably need to get another string of 2010-2012 type summers without any cooler summers mixed in like '09 and '13.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I went with the 2021-2025 time-frame.

 

I do not expect any recovery in the overall thickness of the MYI.  I know we are on track to have the most older ice 4YR+ since 2007.  But even with it's advanced age it's very thin.

 

 

This is what Cryosat had back in March.  From March to the Summer the MYI won't be growing much thicker if at all.  In fact once the MYI reaches about 3 Meters the growth is super tedious.

 

The MYI on the chart below this one that is up to

 

 

 

So they built this on all the data they had pre-1985.  Before anyone acts like that was the stone age.  We have had buoys measuring ice melt since the late 1950s not to mention, expeditions, submarines, ships.  Basically almost all of the ice inside the 2 Meter mark was MYI.  And almost the entire ice sheet of MYI was 5 years old.

 

I think this year really nails it home.  How much better could the weather be overall?  Does anyone realistically think we will ever see multiple Summers with wall to wall conditions like we had in May and June into the first week of July before a 14-17 day switch, where about 12 days of that was prime ice cooking weather.  Before we switched back to a less favorable pattern for melt.  Not as favorable as in June.  But it cooled things off and slowed the ice loss on the metrics.  Now we are looking at maybe a week or two of favorable ice loss/melt in large part to winds.  Winds that shouldn't matter but they do because they are blowing around the slop that covers most of the arctic these days in late Summer and not a thick shore fast much denser and heavier ice pack of before.  It's like a totally different system now because of ice mobility and the unfortunate fact that over the Beaufort, Western CAB, Chuchki, Nansen Basin, and parts of the Laptev and Russian poleside central arctic the sub-surface warm layer or salty layer is found between 40 Meters and 100 Meters these days.

 

On the Atlantic side the higher salinity sits directly below the fresh water top layer on the Pacific side the warm water sides directly below it.  As far as the Russian Seas they are low in Salinity but very shallow so heat being trapped between the top fresh layer and bottom of the Sea bed is easy there. 

 

According to CRREL a division of the Army.  Bottom ice melt has increased over parts of the Beaufort/Pacific side 6 times over the 1990s levels and 10 times over the 1980s levels. 

 

The figure on the right presents an ice thickness climatology based on pre-1985 data. (Bourke and Garrett, 1987). In all likelyhood present-day ice thicknesses are less than these values. There is a strong spatial pattern in the ice thickness, with the thickest ice near the Canadian Archipelago and the thinnest offshore of Siberia. This illustrates that the spatial distribution of ice thickness depends on ice motion and ice residence time in the basin, as well as on thermodynamics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another factor that I am now convinced that is not going to reverse is the Spring snow cover loss.  With a great pattern we went through most of April with both sides of the NH doing very very good with well above normal snow cover.  This opposite for most of the Aprils over the last decade or longer. 

 

1.  Just because we have seen a progressive trend towards lower and lower snow cover over the NH from April-June doesn't mean it's supposed to be that way.  Snow cover isn't something like Sea ice that will grow on itself.  It responds to the weather patterns/climate system.

 

2.  What we have seen leading up to 2012 went well beyond fluctuations in weather.  But if you were going to argue otherwise I can't see how 2013 didn't slam that door shut.

 

3. The snow cover anomaly configuration formed in mid to late March and peaked sometime around April 15-18th.  The NAO went positive and stayed that way well into Summer.  This helped protect snow around the CAA and prevent 2013 from being neck and neck with 2012.  In very regional situations a hemispheric h5 anomaly position can surely have some effect during the May-June period.  But clearly no matter what configuration something happens where snow cover loss just accelerated and feedbacks on it's loss as well.  Especially over Russia where the only snow left is over the Valley regions by the Kara where cold air can be shuttled easily into the lower elevation.  Outside of that on the Asian side the snow that is left going into late May/June is at higher elevations.  However these are not 10K foot+ mountains. These regions will also see a progressive loss of their snow as well as time goes on and general warming/direct forcing from GHG's which happen to be in the most abundance and concentration over the Northern Latitudes which is where water vapor has also increased the most.

 

April 10th/April 20th

 

May 1st/May 11th

 

 

Lastly I picked the 2021-2025 time frame because I expect by then the MYI to be thinner than now.  It might be still running 2-3 million km2 at the end of the melt seasons leading up.  But I believe most of it won't be over 3 meters then.  I also expect the entire CAA to melt out before then.  We have already come very close. 

 

I think we will see Summer heat waves and ridges penetrating well into the CAB all the way to the Northern Baffin Bay like the one we are currently seeing but stronger further to the East and North through all of the CAA into the Southern half of the CAB.  In one of those years where we potentially see NA snow cover melt out say a week or two faster than 2012 did and we get a blocking pattern in mid to late May into June over Northern Canada/CAA we will see the CAA ice and snow vanish quickly with the FYI that blankets almost all of the CAA or all of it then be down to rubble or nothing except North of the NW passage by say July 15th. 

 

 

From there another two week or maybe three week large ridge with an HP over the Southern CAA/North of the Hudson/extending WSW into North Central Canada.  With a strong WSW wind rotating around the HP and a SLP over Alaska or not to help funnel the heat into the CAB where it will meet only the water ways of the CAA as "cool resistance."  No higher albedo resistance.  This will allow record land temperature warmth to roll over the CAA land regions right into the CAB ice with an HP for Sun when the insolation is 450W/M2 and winds sending it to the Fram side. I believe this would be enough energy to thin this ice out enough for bottom melt to play a role it's never played in melting that ice and that's how I see it getting to the one million mark.  

[mnweather]

Why is ice free defined as under 1,000,000 km2? Just curious because I havent really researched this topic much but I find it interesting.

[ORH_wxman]

 

Why is ice free defined as under 1,000,000 km2? Just curious because I havent really researched this topic much but I find it interesting.

 

I think it was just a subjective criteria NSIDC came up with a few years ago. 1,000,000 sq km of ice left at the end would "look" pretty ice free visually, but certainly objectively it is not ice free. Truly ice free will probably take a lot longer because we are sure to have little patches of ice surviving in any given year long after we fall below 1,000,000 million sq km.

[mnweather]

 

 

I think it was just a subjective criteria NSIDC came up with a few years ago. 1,000,000 sq km of ice left at the end would "look" pretty ice free visually, but certainly objectively it is not ice free. Truly ice free will probably take a lot longer because we are sure to have little patches of ice surviving in any given year long after we fall below 1,000,000 million sq km.

Thanks for explaining.

[TerryM]

the canadian archipelago will never be ice free. 

 Why would anyone make such an ignorant statement? Is this in someway related to NC not allowing for more sea level rise over the next hundred years than they experienced in the past hundred years? Is it some kind of creationist position the God made the Arctic sea ice and wouldn't change his mind?

The author is oblivious not just to recent melts (2012) but also to the carbon dated driftwood studies that confirm earlier melts.

It's difficult to understand why anyone with such little understanding of the subject would want to subject himself to the ridicule of every person with even a minimal understanding of the situation.

The DK effect is strong with this individual.

Terry

[bluewave]

 

 

I think it was just a subjective criteria NSIDC came up with a few years ago. 1,000,000 sq km of ice left at the end would "look" pretty ice free visually, but certainly objectively it is not ice free. Truly ice free will probably take a lot longer because we are sure to have little patches of ice surviving in any given year long after we fall below 1,000,000 million sq km.

 

Yeah, I agree it was due to the difficulty of melting the last remnant of ice north of the Canadian archipelago and Greenland. 

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/grl.50316/asset/grl50316.pdf?v=1&t=hk4audd1&s=ad705ec394e60c1a6cfec8115f8e29aed7c6b209

 

When will the summer Arctic be nearly sea ice free?A first issue is the word “nearly.” It is expected that some sea ice will remain as a refuge north of the Canadian archipelago and Greenland at the end of summer. Thus, the practical limit for sea ice loss is arbitrary, but several sources have converged on 1.0 M km2 as a minimum transition point.

 

Walt Meier has some thoughts on this also:

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/2013-arctic-sea-ice-prediction.html

 

"... the rapid losses have come from the Siberian and Alaskan regions of the Arctic. The region along northern Greenland and Canadian Archipelago have not lost much summer ice – for good reason. The predominant ice circulation pushes ice toward those coasts resulting in thick ice that tends to get replenished. In other words, we’ve seen a rapid decline in the “easy” ice to lose, but now we’re getting to the “more difficult” ice. I think it’s likely that that will go more slowly."

[TerryM]

There was a Canadian researcher that thought the CAA would hold out for a few decades after the rest of the pack. Unfortunately he publish in 2011, only to see what happened the following year.

Terry

[Jonger]

There was a Canadian researcher that thought the CAA would hold out for a few decades after the rest of the pack. Unfortunately he publish in 2011, only to see what happened the following year.

Terry

 

Everything that happened last year was erased by this year. What happens if we get 5, 6,7 of these years in a row. The arctic has consistently been BELOW normal this entire summer. Not a single person on Nevens thought that was possible and it happened.

[nzucker]

There was a Canadian researcher that thought the CAA would hold out for a few decades after the rest of the pack. Unfortunately he publish in 2011, only to see what happened the following year.

Terry

It's more the ice to the north of there that people expect to hold up, and that did in 2012...

[ORH_wxman]

Everything that happened last year was erased by this year. What happens if we get 5, 6,7 of these years in a row. The arctic has consistently been BELOW normal this entire summer. Not a single person on Nevens thought that was possible and it happened.

 

There was a poll on that forum back in April and 88% think we'll see an ice free arctic (< 1 million sq km) by 2020. But the poll was for an ice free arctic for average September ice extent as reported by NSIDC...not a one day min. 45% thought that avg September extent would be below 1 million sq km by 2016.

[Jonger]

 

There was a poll on that forum back in April and 88% think we'll see an ice free arctic (< 1 million sq km) by 2020. But the poll was for an ice free arctic for average September ice extent as reported by NSIDC...not a one day min. 45% thought that avg September extent would be below 1 million sq km by 2016.

 

I guessed that it would take 30+ years, but I could see the immediate coastal CAA to Greenland hold out over a 100 years. I'm 34 years old and I'm not sure I will ever see an ice free arctic. I also think CO2 will never climb over 500ppm either.

[bluewave]

There was a Canadian researcher that thought the CAA would hold out for a few decades after the rest of the pack. Unfortunately he publish in 2011, only to see what happened the following year.

Terry

 

A recent model projection still has a small remnant of sea ice north of Greenland in 2100.

 

http://www.ccin.ca/home/ccw/seaice/future

 

[SVT450R]

A recent model projection still has a small remnant of sea ice north of Greenland in 2100.

 

http://www.ccin.ca/home/ccw/seaice/future

 

map2.jpg

This is exactly why even now and years to come it will be hard to meet the ice free conditions criteria since the thick ice is pushed up against the CAA/Greenland coastlines which atm run's out of melting time before it can manage a large impact into this area.  I believe we would need to see much more warming in the arctic to have a chance at it.

[WinterWxLuvr]

Agreed upon, arbitrary, etc., 1,000,000 km^2 is a pretty good chunk of ice to be considered ice free.

[skierinvermont]

They don't use zero sq km as "ice free" because the ice sheets coming off canada and Greenland will create sea ice decades after the rest of the ice has melted. Maybe not 1 million, I guess they could have used 500k or something, but the general idea is to not count ice coming off the continents. 

 

I went with 2026-2030 because this is the scientific consensus as I understand it. I could see anywhere from 2020 to 2060.

[TerryM]

Bluewave

 

I'm sure you've noticed that the ice extent forecast for 2030 through the QEI is actually more than was present last year. To my mind this tends to invalidate much of the model.

The opening of the QEI in 2012 to Arctic ocean MYI & the subsequent melting of it changes the dynamics of advection through the basin. Nares Strait had been the only avenue of escape for ice that trended west of Kap Morris Jesup. That is no longer true so any models that don't take this into consideration are flawed.

The CAA, prior to the opening of the NWP had been a place where old MYI would go to die. Since 2012 it has to be seen as yet another avenue of escape.

Viewing the area north of the CAA over a period of years shows the Sept. extent retreating eastward with Prince Gustaf Adolf & Peary Channel soon going the way of Amundsen & Western Parry Channel - that is becoming summer corridors for MYI.

Terry

[bluewave]

Bluewave

 

I'm sure you've noticed that the ice extent forecast for 2030 through the QEI is actually more than was present last year. To my mind this tends to invalidate much of the model.

The opening of the QEI in 2012 to Arctic ocean MYI & the subsequent melting of it changes the dynamics of advection through the basin. Nares Strait had been the only avenue of escape for ice that trended west of Kap Morris Jesup. That is no longer true so any models that don't take this into consideration are flawed.

The CAA, prior to the opening of the NWP had been a place where old MYI would go to die. Since 2012 it has to be seen as yet another avenue of escape.

Viewing the area north of the CAA over a period of years shows the Sept. extent retreating eastward with Prince Gustaf Adolf & Peary Channel soon going the way of Amundsen & Western Parry Channel - that is becoming summer corridors for MYI.

Terry

 

I don't that it invalidates the spirit of what the model is showing since the extent was more last year closer to the 

Russian Arctic than the 2030 projection that you were discussing. But the main point of the model is to show that the

easy ice will melt out first over the Russian and Pacific sector. I am not using it necessarily for the exact timing.

Even if we go technically ice free sooner, there would still be a considerable lag between 1 million km and 0.

That is the main point of what the model is showing along with the view of scientists like Walt Meier. I believe

that the timing of going technically ice free is less important than the fact that the process is already underway.

 

http://www.skeptical...prediction.html

 

"... the rapid losses have come from the Siberian and Alaskan regions of the Arctic. The region along northern Greenland and Canadian Archipelago have not lost much summer ice – for good reason. The predominant ice circulation pushes ice toward those coasts resulting in thick ice that tends to get replenished. In other words, we’ve seen a rapid decline in the “easy” ice to lose, but now we’re getting to the “more difficult” ice. I think it’s likely that that will go more slowly."

[TerryM]

Bluewave

Walt's paper was thoroughly discussed at Neven's a week or so ago. I'm agnostic about his conclusions primarily because I tend to give more weight to volume and ice dynamics than he.

If volume continues to drop at close to exponential rates and if the dynamics of advection play a large role then extrapolations that include data earlier than 2007 mean very little. It's increasingly difficult to see 2007, 2010 & 2012 as outliers simply because of the prevalence of them in the recent record. 

This year's and probably next year's situation in Nares Strait, with PII2012-A-1's grounding retarding advection by close to a month changes things significantly. The lack of advection this year through Fram Strait is also a game changer. Ice that would have exited the Arctic will be around for another year morphing into much more difficult to melt MYI. The FYI melt water's disruption of the thermohaline stratification won't be occurring for a few years in the Lincoln Sea & this increases the odds of Walt's forecast being correct.

Since 2012 we know that the CAA is capable of opening to advection & models prior to late 2012 properly didn't include this possibility. One other thing that confounds earlier models is the 'hot spot" near Herschel Island. This year they're trying to deploy a myriad of small buoys in the area (without much luck apparently). When data has been collected and analysed I have no doubt that it will be back to the drawing board for everyone trying to make sense of what has been happening there.

PII2012-A-1 is something that is easy to observe & that will be having an effect on ice dynamics in the Lincoln Sea on an unknown time scale. When it remained in place during perigee this June I became convinced that it will be a feature next year and possibly in 2015. As long as it remains & acts to shorten the advection season through Nares Strait it will be prolonging the Arctic sea ice's eventual demise.

Terry

[skierinvermont]

 

If volume continues to drop at close to exponential rates 

 

Why do you consider this a remotely reasonable assumption? This year has seen a significant gain in volume back above 2010 levels. It was already outside the 95% confidence interval of the "exponential trend hypothesis" by the end of June and given the continued slow losses the last 6 weeks, I would guess that it is now very far outside the 95% confidence interval. Furthermore, the 4-yr linear trend will now be nearly zero. 

 

It was already a poor assumption with little physical plausibility to begin with (based on both a conceptual understanding of ice physics, and model-based testing). Given we are now well outside the 95% confidence interval of the hypothesis, it seems like an even worse assumption.

[TerryM]

I don't see exponential as reasonable as we speak. The very late advection in Nares is enough to throw it off track. To stay exponential everything has to fall correctly, this year both Nares and Fram have been far from what was expected. I probably should have written "Were the exponential trends to have continued".

I'm less than certain that PIOMAS is measuring disruptions in the center of the pack correctly & will be very interested in following the data from the buoys after the storm has passed and stratification has returned to normal. If the disruption under FYI is long standing then I'd be inclined to think that PIOMAS may have been giving bad readings from the 2 earlier storms. If things swing back to normal in a short period I'll give this years PIOMAS more weight. I don't think we'll end up north of 2010 at the end of the season.

There were plenty of buoys affected this time around so lots of data points.

This year was totally unexpected by me & therefore will give me plenty to study once the melt season is over. I did note today that the Herschel Island area is heating again. 28C (83F) today at Tuktoyaktuk - that's hot for anywhere on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

Terry

 

[Nimbostratus]

Somewhere between 2025-2060. People are really going to be shocked when we see a strongly positive PDO and El Nino will do next,and I think it will be the game changer

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

I'd say within roughly 500 years, maybe even a century or two longer. It will take at least several centuries for all that accumulated ice to fully melt away, imho.

[LithiaWx]

I'd say within roughly 500 years, maybe even a century or two longer. It will take at least several centuries for all that accumulated ice to fully melt away, imho.

What accumulated ice, where?

[skierinvermont]

What accumulated ice, where?

 

Must be a troll post. Or somebody that doesn't know what they're talking about. 

[PhillipS]

Just a bump since this topic has come up today in the Sea Ice Extent thread.  Interesting that the votes don't come close to anything like a gaussian distribution.

 

Edit - for comparison, look at the distribution of votes on the Sea Ice Minimum poll.

[Jonger]

Just saw Loko's pick.... Within 6 years? And he's a met.