Sea ice delusions by thick snow carpet, crystals of illusions

~Whether viewed close by  or from space,  sometimes thin sea ice looks much thicker

Kara sea ice is disintegrating rapidly not only because the sun is melting it like crazy, but rather a mix of ripe conditions,  namely its ice is  mostly very thin,  especially with a lot of snow on it,  but winds and current were not able to blow it away until today,  so thin ice is not as fragile as thought and can easily be broken all at once, not especially detectable from close or afar,  even from space, especially with snow layers .    Only Inuit hunters are best at detecting, because there is a hundred words for snow in Inuktitut the language of the Arctic, snow surface structures may define what it covers.  (NASA EOSDIS June 1-8 2018).  

Other side of the Pole in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago,  April 2 to 9 2018,  a massive chunk of ice disintegrated at the entrance of the Northwest passage, Lancaster Sound,   quite unusual to see Lancaster filled with apparently solid sea ice,  a few times in the past ,  during the coldest years it did so,  the last severe Lancaster Sound full coverage had thicker sea ice surviving till mid July 1987.    2018 is not 1987,  has illusions of such,  February March 2018 had very cold favorable for rapid new sea ice formation,  I estimate most of Lancaster sea ice to be lesser than 80 cm though  ,  there is a lot of snow on it,  giving the impression of thick sea ice,  this snow reduced accretion. But here is the illusion which will unravel when the structure of compacted hard snow gets pummelled by warm sublimation and under snow melting,  along with tidal and winds severe stresses,  large chunks of Lancaster ice will disappear in a matter of a few days.  Cohesion of thin sea ice is remarkable,  but ultimately fails in apparent massive extent events.   

     There is also the illusion of sea ice extent itself,  we note 2012 amongst this 2010-2018 June 9 animation,  2012 the year having the greatest melt on record,  had on its June 9  the most Lancaster Sound sea ice of all.    It is important to judge sea ice with a context of complications, all encompassing measures,  winds, tides, current,  momentum,  lead structures, architectural layouts , snow cover and temperatures must be considered.   If for instance Kara sea South of Novaya Zemlya Island has persistent winds compacting thinner sea ice in its pocket,  its ice would appear thick till favorable conditions would vanish it out of existence.  This disintegration rapidity factor must be considered chunk by massive chunk,  although some parts of ice survives does not mean its adjoining ice is different.    One main reason why thinner sea ice may survive longer is that it is smooth on top, the winds glide over with lesser friction. WD June 13, 2018

Arctic Ocean circulation Switchover occurred as expected in late April projection...

~Temperature is key ,  now Arctic Cyclones are colder than High pressures.

CMC June 12 2018,  with a High now over Baffin and a low over the Arctic Ocean Gyre,    in between is the CTNP vortex,   the pressure scene has SWITCHED ,  offering some hope for sea ice with extra cloud cover.

Further a study:

What separates the High from the Low is a cold upper air zone not measured in a significant density  grid manner.  700 mb temperature and pressure heights CMC June 12, 2018 1200 UTC.

   What remains is the possibility of an Arctic Dipole,  which is a rare event at this time of great melting.      The possibility is there but requires a High over Alaska which may venture North. Mean time we must judge how fragile sea ice is by its velocity:

       Impressive speeds of sea ice drift makes for a great melt,  it is fortunately the source of open water.  Fog and cloud source at near 0 C temperatures.    WD June 12, 2018

KARA sea ice appears to have significant melting and extensive water ponds

   Kara sea next to  Russia shore has lost a lot of sea ice,  with remaining having greenish colours indicating melt ponds..  Note the 'goodbye waves' in the dark sea,  precursor sea ice just about to completely melt and merge with sea water.

Comparison with 2010-2017 makes 2018 most favorable about melting rates exceeding 2012,  the wider open dark sea water zone of 18 rivals 2010,  but is most significant causing its remaining sea ice very vulnerable.  WD June 12, 2018

Novaya Zemlya region did not have time to have thick 1.5 meters sea ice.

May 2018 PIOMAS sea ice anomaly map .  in particular we look at Western Novaya Zemlya region

     Notice the gradual red darkening indicating sea ice anomaly 1.5 m thicker than mean next to Russian motherland.....

   NASA worldview February 9. March 9,  April 9, May 9 and June 9 2018 Western Novaya Zemlya viewed from the South:

   With very little sea ice at least till mid- February,  most of the area was covered by March 9 with first year very thin fresh sea ice,  this is observed by sea current and winds easily breaking thin sea ice up especially as seen in April.  Come June there was no evidence of multi year sea ice migrations,  it is just new sea ice.  It is conservative to estimate that this ice had only 3 months to accrete, which is definitely not possible to thicken so quickly beyond 150 cm,  consider sea water temperatures usually warmer there in Barents sea as well.  Not possible at least in my experience,  I estimate its thickness to be downwards of 80 cm given the lack of consolidation,  also given a significant period of warmer surface temperatures and especially the apparent thick snow cover which masked its broken nature especially in April.

      Red 1.5 meters North East NZ having spectacular water intermix

 May 2018 flow of ice for most of the month... 

     First of all,  there is  extensive wide open water NE of NZ ,  secondly the flow is spectacularly lazy. no very extensive ridging is possible amongst open water!

WDJune 10,2018

some PIOMAS ice thicker with warmer over all weather

~Just how does sea ice get thicker when temperature anomalies are warmer?
~The snow conundrum is suggested


  WE look back Novaya Zemlya area wide open water mid October 2017

     Much clouds but little or no sea ice...


   Then we take NOAA daily composites and calculate surface temperature anomalies:

As I recall,  it was much warmer most of winter North Central Russia Arctic Ocean area ,  mostly more than +6 C warmer,  mean temperatures would have been higher was it not until end of winter cooling.  

Yet the ice is supposedly substantially thicker,  I wonder what would do that?  

But more snow of course,  although there are no measurements for wide areas of the Arctic,  precipitable Daily Composites water gives an idea.  There is most likely more snow on the sea ice in the areas where the sea ice is proposed to be thicker,  it would of course delay its melting,  but also likely mask its thickness.  

A closer June 8 2018 look at the same ice area reveals broken up ice pans,  many areas held together by the fragile glue of very thin sea ice caused by a late winter freeze up...

WD June 8,2018

Pacific and Atlantic sea ice fronts most receded compared to 2012-17

~  Is there any wonder why sea ice is in dire shape after more than a month of Gyre reinforcing steady anticyclone?

~All significant fronts show current devastation greater than same date 2012!

From excellent NASA worldview archives:

 Atlantic front 2018 #1 melting position compared to 2012-2017

Beaufort sea, 2018 close to #1 shared with very warm 2016 and similar in circulation 2017.   

2018 Pacific region #1 receded sea ice very significant given solar

forcing on the much darker already very warmed because of less winter sea ice Bering Sea.  In retrospect 2013 was a very interesting year,  despite a constant cyclone over the gyre area,  this current still turned clockwise.  

  No matter what will happen,  although I have a very good projection of what will occur, the very greatly enhanced Arctic Ocean gyre current will devastate sea ice by compaction till sea ice minima comes.  wd,  June 6 2018

Possible Arctic Ocean Gyre pressure switchover date modeled, but questions remain

~ECMWF  projects a Low over the Arctic Ocean gyre area

~  Latest sun data contradicts some of its forecast

  We start with Greenland Melt extent being very quiet:

If there is a great cold atmosphere area to the West of Greenland,  it would certainly affect its melt rate.  It is so.

   The latest sun data seems to indicate a stubborn cold zone at least 140 km wide in diameter,  this because of limitations of a high sun , 20 degrees in elevation,  which refraction method helps measure,  covering a smaller atmospheric transect.  Not long ago it was 400 km wide.... 

At any rate,  the CAA upper atmosphere is very cold,  perhaps more so than reported to ECMWF:

   The sudden ECMWF drop in pressure height over the Canadian Arctic Archipelago by June 9 is the only question over this forecast,  come so would result in a  surprise large displacement of the coldest  zone in the Northern Hemisphere.    Note the projected Cyclone over the Arctic Ocean gyre area,  this would be the first time in more than a month of such an image.  

   A switchover from steady High to Low was much forecasted in late April:   http://eh2r.blogspot.com/2018/04/2018-annual-spring-summer-projection-by.html

  Not quite like this ECMWF effort,  we await June 9 and report back.....  

WD May 30, 2018

Deep refraction observing vs super computers outlooks

~Long term weather projections have been consistently bad,  no better than flipping a coin as
  some suggest.

~EH2r refraction methods likely will surpass supercomputers,  with only data from mainly one station at a very strategic location  vs hundreds of the world wide grid  for the machines.

   May 9   Accuweather summer projection  has little resemblance to EH2r circulation projections.

http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2018/04/2018-annual-spring-summer-projection-by.html

    According to 24 days ago EH2r projection,  which has been to date  quite accurate, t he only time the West with  above normal summer temperatures would be end of summer,
Central Canada should be equal  slightly below to normal, at beginning and very end of summer,   Eastern Canada above normal till summer end.   Baffin Island is way off,  must be colder to seasonal throughout.

Weather Channel does something smart ,  it splits the summer into 3 months.  However,  there does not seem to be any coherence with EH2r outlook:

May 18 projection seems to be made from the same super computer run,  West of a vortex should have influx from the North,  unless the North warms incredibly,  it should be cooler there from beginning of summer till end of July. 

NOAA  looks pretty good at equal to average temperatures in the Midwest despite not projecting for each month,  the deep Southwest US above normal seems reasonable given the lack of circulation from the greater distance to the Cold Temperature North Pole.  Eastern North America would be an "A" would it be not for end of summer cloudiness cooling. 

ECMWF  based May 1,  June-July-August-September 2018...  June is the one with the most probability below normal temperatures at 60 to 70 % in deep blue.  The particular fixation with Western North America being probably warmer is illogical,  the flow suggested by ECMWF  West of the CAA (Canadian Arctic Archipelago) infers a flow from the North
throughout all 4 months.  Advection from the South should boost a warming (Eastern North America).  The UK becoming progressively warmer than normal as summer progresses looks good.  Barents sea area warmer mid summer onwards seems correct,  equally Alaska above average temperatures throughout makes sense.  Although seems that ECMWF model is calling for El-Nino to reappear as well.

ECMWF looks good in many regions despite the same common flaw,  all models except NOAA seem to rely heavily on the same  western North America warming.  We shall see if this holds true.  WD May 20, 2018

The cold air mirror: snow

~Snow can be as complex as it can be simple
~Where are the thicker layers on sea ice?
~  The Equation of winter T***<=Ts  helps,  only if remote sensing provides true skin temperatures

 

    NOAA map room temperatures May 13 2018, closely outline the shrinking snow carpet,  alas snow water equivalent map seems to have a trace snow layer North of Alaska, when not visually seen,  nevertheless with continued particular attention to the Behring sea area, we see 0 to -5 C outline (green) coinciding with spring sea ice break from shore almost at a normal date given the lasting great CTNP of the CAA. Wherever sea ice exists, it is possible for surface air temperature to exceed 0 C, but the ice field must be broken:

     When sea ice breaks the ice field surface air warms by open water absorbing sun light, T*** top of sea ice mainly covered by snow, becomes T* * partially covered, only then surface temperatures may be much warmer. So far so good,  the surface temperature map above does not contradict the equations,  except for the missing snow . But while using the same rules, we can find where the most snow lies, for this we need “surface skin temperatures”, which are no longer easily found on the web, but can be taken on IR satellite pictures only when there are no clouds masking the ground.

The imprint of snow basically mirrors where cold spring air mass is,  from here we can see the coming June -July weather circulation configuration,  forming as expected if the maps are accurate. We need watch for surface air temperatures on whatever ice buoy station there is.  Not many and few,  we must rely on surface model calculations, presumably based from these "skin temperatures" .   Given that these are correct,  sometimes they are not,  but allowing us the indulgence that they are, we can make out where most of deep snow exists:

NOAA map room, 7  day mean temperature for May 7 to may 13 2018.  The snow dominates the blue regions,  exactly where 2 Cold Temperature North Poles exist,  not to mention Greenland,  which is one giant snow pack.  The blue green zone, 0 to -5 C,  is more exposed sea ice,  more apt to have earlier melt ponds,  snow may lie on top of water over sea ice as well.   I would consider a +.5 C surface air reading ideal to guaranty water on ground or ice. WD May 14,2018

   

   

Invisible INVINCIBLE

~Some circulation models may not have a correct prognosis of the current location and extent of the great CTNP 'vortice' of 2018

  ~  Proof checking the GFS,  not quite getting High Arctic circulation  right;

Central CAA ice crystals in May?  Very good ice crystal display including Parry Arc,  in the bottom foreground ice fog,  with a form of organic smog,  not common within the last 10 years or so.  Sure signals usually associated with a  deeply cold Upper Atmosphere. 

GFS 850 mb Geopotential height and vorticity April 30 onwards.  brings a Cyclone right over the Arctic Ocean Gyre area,  not possible if there is a  major cold temperature "vortice"  hovering over the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA),  the  Low pressures should head Southwards instead. 

    And so they did:

CMC actual surface maps following the projection above, As we can see the GFS fizzled in precision,  highly likely because closest thing to AI or the supercomputer creating its circulation models,  does not consider the "vortice" hovering about the CAA as  a significant cold area.  Notice the Lows following the outline of the coldest one rather than going towards the Pacific Ocean.   Which did not make any sense.  Confirming so we look at latest GFS:

   The GFS seems to be more precise within about 3 days in the CAA region of Arctic,  I am sure it is more potent elsewhere with more numerous upper air stations,  but no Lows hovering towards the Arctic Ocean Gyre yet...    Note to mr AI ,  there will be a switchover from High pressure over the Gyre area to Low pressure,  but Highs are still colder than Lows,  wait a bit or review at :  http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/2018/04/2018-annual-spring-summer-projection-by.html

    In case some weather expert will note that 850 mb GFS is not quite at surface, we look at latest 850 mb analysis which reflects CMC's surface prognosis quite well:

                                          CMC may 6 2018 850 mb chart.   wd May 6 2018