Mars InSight landing spot photos suggest not so deep permafrost

~Atmospheric refraction of a CO2 atmosphere is probably visible,  more dedicated photos are required though.
~First photographic hints at very slight horizon refraction
~Given the thinness of the atmosphere, much of this of course was expected,  but further very serious photography should be undertaken.

    Mars has a 6 mb atmosphere,  169 times less weighty than on Earth.  Not many refraction specialists believe it capable of causing some atmospheric mirages,  but near the horizon,  the game changes, at that level,  we look at a much thicker atmosphere.  Consider what we always knew,  Mars landscape looked carved by water ever since a closer telescopic look at the planet was achieved.   Now that we have access to a probe capable of staying still,  by refraction optics we can see if there is any ice permafrost,  which can give a spectacular effect similar to sea ice horizons on Earth.

     Ice and Martian soil should have different specific heat capacity,  ice has most certainly  a greater heat capacity, which means that it affects the soil right over it,  in particular,   when the cloudless sunny sky  hits a pure rocky outcrop,  the air right above warms up rapidly,  this may cause a "road mirage"  like on Earth,  however subtle likely so on Mars, but none heard of so far.   Examples here show no rapid lowering,  a sure sign of a permeating factor.  Here we study the Martian horizon,  by NASA design from a probe not moving around all over the place:

NASA InSight December 5 and 7 2018 .  15:27  and at 11:34 local mean solar time respectively,  the 5th has greater shadow to the right.  The robotic arm has likely moved around, and is placed back not always exactly  in this same resting spot.   The pictures are aligned,  with your mouse pointer, verify carefully the positions of nearest rocks,  now look at the horizon.  Point your mouse at any point on the horizon line,  you will see the darker image having a very slightly higher horizon throughout.  The darker image is nearest local noon, with warmest sun effects,  was likely taken with an optical filter.  If there is near surface permafrost the horizon should eventually lower,  in this case the horizon lowered perhaps further and is now rising towards the near noon height, meaning the ground horizon has sea ice properties,  namely frozen water....

  Experience on Earth dictates:  top of sea ice warms enough to lower the horizon after local apparent noon, given no great weather change,   this usually happens a few hours after noon.  The brighter image here is at 3:27 PM usually at about the same time when the sea ice horizon reaches lower point on Polar Earth.

     CO2 Martian atmosphere may cause different refraction effects,  namely 95% CO2 concentration surely gives a great  warming potential,  so the surface should warm really rapidly when the sun rises, again a dry rocky substratum horizon should lower at local apparent noon,  not take a few hours as on Earth.  Which as we know,   on any given sunny day without much great weather circulation,  noon is not the warmest time of day.

   A rudimentary model using refraction index of CO2 gas,  incidentally greater than air at standard pressures and temperatures,  calculates a very small shrinking of the vertical sun disk equally at  the horizon.  However,  the interplay between Martian soil, permafrost and CO2 atmosphere is novel,  more studying is needed.  WD December 9 2018

North American West Coast healthy rainy seasons need normal sea ice extent

~ Long ignored sea ice climate permutations manifest big time

~ We look at mainly the North Pacific

~ Current El-Nino can only exacerbate bent Northwards general circulation 

   Although its pleasant climate has apparently nothing to do with ice and snow, there is a rainy season in sunny L.A.  California,  having everything to do with a colder climate to the North.   Through long time late autumn  cycles,  the North got significantly cold mainly because Siberia and Alaska was imbued in longer dark days creating a net lost heat to space.    But sea ice cover within Arctic Ocean  and very North Pacific is an equivalent to land,  also greatly cooled the North,  absent sea ice ,  replaced by warmed sea water,  winter's cold punch  has dulled,  especially since 2007,  but very much seriously lately:

NOAA November 12 2018 sst anomalies  Further North, they call it the blob,  the great North Pacific surface warming has a lot to do with the lack of cooling during winter,  because there is a feedback loop between less sea ice extent and more low clouds.  Even less radiation leaving to space favors the presence of huge Cyclones :  

The implied late autumn black line should be the location of the polar jet stream given the latest sea ice extent losses.  Fortunately often present massive North Pacific cyclones bend the jet to its South (red line),  but this means the North Pacific is covered with clouds for vaster periods,  not cooling the sea surface to space.  This also implies a shift in rainy season of the West North American coast,  well Northwards,  this current climate scene was not always so  :

  Given a normal sea ice scenario,  pre 1998,  a shift in the Polar jet stream well to the South of its latest decadal tendencies  gave the recorded fall and winter  coastal rainy seasons climate which was importantly wetter than latest recent years.   WD November 15 2018

Major Polar Vortex rearrangement

~Siberia gets back it's freezing mojo
~Canadian Arctic Upper Air is remarkably warm
~A confluence of wider Arctic Ocean open water and thinner North of Greenland sea ice killed the great Canadian  Arctic Archipelago super cold vortex of 2018 about 10 days ago
~Asymmetric in size Arctic Polar vortex consequences for winter 18-19

09 0000 UTC CMC 700 mb chart with colour ( by me),  blue zone -20 to -25 C,  pink -25 to -30,  red below -30 C.    Demonstrates a great disparity in coldest  temperatures between North America and Eurasia,  Siberia regained its famed coldest weather in the Northern world.   While the North American side will undoubtedly be varnished with a much warmer winter with strange Polar Vortex rogue vortices causing sudden extreme weather events.    Such example is happening now,  a midwest North American vortice  formed colder than anything currently  in the Arctic,  it is not a cold from the Arctic blast,  it is a very exotic,  I would say interesting,  rogue vortice which will cause havoc over a much larger Anerica basking in above average weather.    On the other continent,  if this is the coming winter Polar Vortex arrangement,   UK, Scandinavia and Moscow will be wet like London of old.  While Japan and Alaska will benefit with much warmer and yes wet weather. 

   As far as sea ice is concerned,  it was to blame for this climate rearrangement.  In near total darkness CAA never really got a chance to go deep cold,  because there was no Arctic Basin deep long night enhanced cooling, stopped by unprecedented open water North of Greenland,  which became thinner,  but still  releasing more heat ,  contributing in tandem with a once near 1 million km2 square wider open water  heat release bonanza ultimately decimating the great North American Vortex of 2018 ,  it nearly lasted a year.    The current  pumping of Pacific blob sea surface heat is reaching to near Greenland,  greatly impeding a strong Canadian vortex to form.    This new climate scene will cause a different ice accretion geographic distribution,  already drastically warming Bering sea area, no accretion ,  and cooling further  the North Pole (needed accretion),    the latter has sea ice already in place,  the former has open water not to freeze so fast....WD November 9 2018

2018 sea ice refreeze is identical to melting to minima in reverse slow motion

~Today's 2018 JAXA extent is #1 lowest within historical record

~Since minima refreeze pattern almost exact melting in reverse

~There is no doubt that fresh less dense surface melt water is necessary for more rapid refreeze

 JAXA 13 to 19 October extent map closely resembles the melt process flipped backwards,  Fram Strait is overwhelmed with easy flowing sea ice from the trans polar current reformed and re-ignited  along with the  Central Arctic Basin  gyre.    Even with Fram surface waters really warm the ice cover gets renewed daily,  in short a more normal ice dumping scene with much warmer water:

Elsewhere  October 21 CMC SST's are still quite warm,  it takes -1.8 C water for sea water to freeze.  Despite greater darkness 0 C waters North of East Siberian sea is astounding,  the Atlantic front ice border remains stable and Bering Chukchi seas super warmed waters guaranty a further slower refreeze,  which makes this map interesting:

   A JAXA back to the future moment,  but we are currently 29 days away from minima,  as opposed
to this 19 days remove sep 3 JAXA eerily similar map to today absent Fram Strait.  The CAB is not refreezing well largely because of great cloud coverage and very warm sst's,  which gives a surface temperature feedback loop of warming.  These two factors made 2018 overall #1 lowest extent especially along with very thinned central CAB sea ice, made perfectly obvious by the presence of nearly permanent Arctic Ocean overcast with clouds and the lack of an anticyclone over the North Pole,  which always happened in the past at the start of the long Arctic night.  The biggest news is for larger populations further South,  an abnormal winter awaits them. 

CMC October 24,  sign of compaction in North Pole to Greenland sector, with finally a High pressure,  an extension first  originating from the Canadian Archipelago South.  A very unusual,  unique,  very loose pack North Greenland sea ice was present throughout end of melting season.  Now we can attest,  this anomaly has largely frozen over.   A North Pole High following Minima usually means the start of winter,   about 3 weeks late. 

WD October 21,  last GIF October 24, 2018

Fram Strait sea ice melting Van Gogh style

~Long without action Fram strait appears to melt incoming sea ice rapidly
direct contact with +2 C water ,  cooled a bit from a summer of continuous warming.

Sea water right into the melt zone by any standards extremely warm,  therefore giving images like this: 

We have a look at apparently rapid melting,  at least for this time of the year,  with equally fast Southwards flowing sea ice as seen October 4 ,  the goodbye waves here are definitely artistic and
different than slow melting type as reported with previous article.  Warm surface sea water +2 C awaits any arrivals.  wd October 9, 2018

Slow melting Goodbye Waves examples

~ 78 N 176 W very slow melting made obvious by individual Goodbye Waves readily identifiable day by day.

~   The waves in this case seem to stream over fresh melted less saline colder sea water.

    This JAXA portion of melt area is very interesting,   JAXA October 4 and 5 has more sea ice than NASA captures,  that is not new,  but here we see the likelihood that Goodbye Waves are melting over less saline recently melted  sea water,  not really warmed by significant sunlight.

   There is melting,  but not so fast , October 1 to 5 NASA EOSDIS,  we look especially at left waves
breaking down slowly.  We also see a day by day variation in the main pack compacting a little but really moving,   still individual waves are recognizable,  a large contrast to not so long ago melting when the waves disappeared or were impossible to identify from one day to next.   WDOctober 5 2018

Powerful Arctic Ocean heat feeds the dipole engine

~The great minimum stall of 2018 highlights

Not seeming warm +3 C sst near New Siberian Islands has some localized impact .  Remember local average temperatures for the 2 guys living on Kotelny (the largest) Island is -11 C in October. No doubt the once much warmed East Siberian sea is still giving off some heat.  

   We look at New Siberian Island Novaya Sibir to the upper right on September 27 covered with snow,  nothing unusual,  however lost most of its new snow on October 2.   To the left is pack ice moving towards this Island:

   October 2's,  2007 to 2018 , since 2007 Novaya Sibir Island was always covered with snow onwards....

   Oct 4 2007,  a clearer view,  to date,  Oct 4 2018 same Island is snowless.  

            Meanwhile since Minimum date,  North Atlantic Front is nearing 85 North.  JAXA September 23 October 3 2018.   

Open water towards 85 North at October's gate

    The Atlantic front East of Spitsbergen is also advancing Northwards.  It is probably the slowest overall refreeze since 2012.  There is likely some freezing  but also a great daily variance in extent due to floating snow and possibly some melting,  needing to be identified in specific areas.  But here ,  the Eat Siberian bite seems unstopped in its ever slow advance,  JAXA 15 to 29 September 2018 ,  the 15th being the messiest at the top left corner.

September 26 to October 1, amazing NASA captured  melting at edge of Equinox North Pole darkness on what is the continuing advance of water towards the North from the East Siberian Sea quadrant,  with strong evidence of melting:

These Goodbye Waves,  the last phase of sea ice to water,  changed in structure day by day  September 29-30 and October 1,  it was also certainly a mix of fusion physics requiring presence of a ship confirming and observing this directly.

WD September 30, October 1  2018

Thinner sea ice always with pervasive low clouds slowed the yearly melting rate in summer, but reduced accretion and extent in winter

~Only much sunnier Arctic Ocean summers can cause greater melts...
~There was more solar forcing prior to 2013

~                                                 Thicker sea ice = less summer clouds
~                                                   Thinner sea ice = more summer clouds

~ However,  over all year by year thinning of Arctic sea ice continues,  because clouds from same thinner sea ice slow dark season accretion and extent growth considerably. 

The evidence:

          DMI80 average temperature is an excellent source of data,  despite being a temperature model of models.   In the case of sea ice, it would be better if the data was presented strictly for sea areas not a mix of land and sea.  DMI 83.5 North upwards would be nice to have.  Nevertheless,  temperature over sea ice during summer barely goes above +2 C,  averages about + 0.75 C .  This is explainable by the equation of winter:

                                                                      T***<= Ts

         Temperature of top of snow/ice is alway colder or equal to Ts,  surface air at about 2 meters above.  The only thing warming top of sea ice is the sun or warmer air,  both may be considered from the same source.   With enough exposure, the sun melts sea ice snow top,  water on ice then may never be so warm,  therefore the just above 0 bit.   Hence DMI practically always is a measure of top of sea ice temperature,  with a partial land contribution,  some from open water,  therefore the at times +2 C daily average maximum.

          IN spring and summer, if it is sunny enough,   temperatures may be sufficient to crack open thinner sea ice giving leads to also contribute to warming.   But it has to be sunny.  In the not so distant past, surface temperatures indicated it was sunnier:

We observe 1980 to 1990 summer seasons always equal or exceeding the average trend in green.
It is not indicating open water at the Pole but rather,  indirectly giving out the presence of the sun,
largely favored when overall sea ice was thicker.

 The "average "  daily summer temperatures continued till year 2000. Note the often above average temps,

      From 2007  onwards the daily averages tended to be below except for 2007-2008,  2011-2012 and 2015-2016.   None having substantial  number of days above the green line,

   Of all summers which mattered 2009 and 2013 stand out.   Following the great melt of 2007 one would expect thinner sea ice to cool summer surface temperatures in 2008,  but that did not happen,
because there was a cloud thinning La-Nina in 08,  however 2009 had a drop in temperatures.  The best example is 2013,  immediately following the greatest melt of 2012,   summer 2013 thinner sea ice did establish itself for a vast area of the Arctic Ocean:

DMI summer 2013 cool temperature profile...

    Thinner sea ice is very conducive for clouds,  and clouds very "welcoming" for cyclones.  Despite
more than 11 million km2 sea ice melt of 2012,  2013 thinner sea ice increased cloud albedo,  effectively cooling the summer for most of the Arctic.



Case for thinner sea ice,  extent maximums

   JAXA extent maximum data 2003 to 2018,    there are 2 increase peaks from mainly descending sea ice maximum values,  the 2007 to 2008 and 2011 to 2012 peaks,  it should not come as a surprise that 2007 and 2012 had major sea ice losses during their respective following summers, the winters preceding were characterized as having less clouds,  more accretion by  dark starry nights continued by bright sunny days. But note the great extent maximum increases in 2007-2018  and 2012.  The steady lower maximum peaks since 2015 are equally attributable to the contrary,  warm cloudy dark seasons indirectly interpreted from DMI graphs above,  persisted during each following summer.   Here is ample evidence that the lesser winter extent gains exceeded the summer melt losses.


Thinner sea ice causes pervasive cloudiness giving an apparent melt plateau

      TOTAL melt numbers again reflect extensive cloudiness,   2007 (first high peak) was spectacularly exceeded in 2012 with nearly 12,000 million km2 extent loss,   translation:  2007-08 and 12 sea ice had  greater solar forcing summers,  2010 and 16 had smaller ones,  but  much opposite 2009-11-13-14-15-16-17 and 18 more or less have had increasing melting at a much slower rate,  these years were characterized by their extensively cloudy weather all while sea ice thinned during equally cloudy from one year to the next winters.   When summer sunshine got through longer, the melts became progressively greater,  2007 had thicker sea ice than 12,  but when this same sun got through in 12,  the melt was greater from a thinner sea ice base.


Minimums

  There are 4 minimum dips on this graph,  2004, 2007, 2012 and 2016.  The most fascinating point to make is why there was a following summer extensive minimum increase after such great depletions? Why would there be lesser sea ice melting when there was certainly thinner sea ice base after each great event loss?  2013 had the most phenomenal minimum comeback.  By strict terms of achievements,  at 2012 minima,  with less sea ice than ever, led to 2013 maximum, which started with less extent at maxima and wide spread thinner sea ice than 2012,   yet extent minima in 13 had much more sea ice,  the weather wasn't so cold to justify such a strange feature,  but there was plenty thin sea ice which broke up very easily during its spring causing the clouds and cyclonic weather to prevail throughout summer,  stalling greater disintegration of sea ice when it should have disappeared more readily.


Discussion

      Post 2012 Minimums  were all greater in extent,  yet NASA GISS Northern Hemisphere average temperatures were all warmer than 2012 except for 2013.  This temperature record contradiction simply expresses the different world of sea ice,  which may appear to buck the Global Warming trend,  but it is simply a zonal feedback event from clouds over sea  ice not as massively thick.  The multiple presence of huge Arctic Ocean ice islands  spanning in all its quadrants,  more common in the 80's,  basically encouraged more solar forcing against fiercely persistent sea ice,  having much fewer summer leads of open water,  a friendlier  seascape for a persistent high pressure often to the West of the much larger summer polar vortex.  This was the most common weather feature of the Arctic Ocean,  an Anticyclone hovering about the Arctic Ocean gyre area,  the very physical source
making  the  famous gyre turn clockwise,  equally the start of the trans continental sea current  starting from North of Siberia towards Fram Strait.    Summer 2018 saw both of these currents mainly absent.  Despite spring onslaught of very steady High North of Alaska.   One would assume these currents to dominate at times,  especially when the winds became weak, but 2018 sea currents appeared lame at best, incapable of overcoming the weakest winds.  This lack of consistent compaction caused a vast new area of open water to appear well North of Ellesmere and Greenland.
Chaotic spasmic variable currents is the new sea ice circulation  mode,  all this may appear to prevent great melts,  but these are only one sunnier summer away,  or rather sea ice Maximums will surely shrink in extent to about 11, 000,000km2,   this is when 2012's events, or worse,  will occur no matter how cloudy the summer Arctic Ocean may be.   WD September 30 2018 

Tale of 2 sides of the North Pole, one with fresh snow cover, the other a summer cloudy day

 A 2018 special feature wide open water where no human has ever seen before,   was covered up by
snow  ,  as if it never happened.  But it is still there,  under very thin or snow covered sea.

       There is a stalemate in the Atlantic front,  very warm North Atlantic waters keep any progression of sea ice at bay.

   September 14 15,  15 is the one with withe tip at top most end of sea ice,  the North Atlantic front is still heading towards the Pole.  There is a distinct possibility that AMSR2 confuse "Goodbye Waves" with rock hard sea ice.  daily scattered/compressed oscillation of sea ice suggests so.

    80 N 166 W NASA captures 8, 10 and 16 September,  leaves no doubt of further melting  from within,  a compacted ice pack would have less water from within.  

78 N 173 E,  proof of melting again,  with a very small bit of compaction can be determined by the slight displacement of largest pans at right,  while bigger number of goodbye waves in a mere 2 days. WD September 16 2018