Thinning Arctic Sea Ice Poised to Undergo Record Decline in Mid-August, Volume Minimum Likely

Sea Ice Area, Cryosphere Today, 1979-2000 in gray [click to enlarge]

It looks increasingly likely that we’ll match or beat the 2007 record for Arctic sea ice area.  That means we should easily set the record for volume, since the ice is considerably thinner than 4 years ago.  The death spiral continues.

Whether we will set the record for sea ice extent, which tends to get most of the media coverage, is a tougher call.  Extent and area are diverging more than usual, as I’ll discuss below.  But either way, the next few weeks should be pretty fascinating to watch.

As meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters explained yesterday, “Arctic sea ice poised to undergo record decline in mid-August“:

A strong high pressure system with a central pressure of 1035 mb has developed over the Arctic north of Alaska, and will bring clear skies and warm southerly winds to northeast Siberia and the Arctic during the coming week, accelerating Arctic sea ice loss. Widespread areas of northeastern Siberia are expected to see air temperatures 4 – 12°C (7 – 22°F) above average during the coming week, and the clockwise flow of air around the high pressure system centered north of Alaska will pump this warm air into the Arctic. Arctic sea ice extent, currently slightly higher than the record low values set in 2007, should fall to to its lowest extent for the date by the third week of August as the clear skies and warm southerly winds melt ice and push it away from the coast of Siberia. This weather pattern, known as the Arctic Dipole, was also responsible for the record sea ice loss in 2007, but was stronger that year. The weather conditions that led to the 2007 record were quite extreme–one 2008 study led by Jennifer Kay of the National Center for Atmospheric Research showed that 2007′s combination of high pressure and sunny skies in the Arctic occur, on average, only once every 10 – 20 years.

The 2011 summer weather pattern in the Arctic has not been nearly as extreme as in 2007, but the total sea ice volume has declined significantly since 2007, leading to much loss of old, thick, multi-year ice, making it easier to set a new low extent record with less extreme weather conditions. The GFS model is predicting that the Arctic Dipole will weaken by 8 – 15 days from now, with cloudier weather and weaker high pressure over the Arctic. This should slow down the rate of Arctic sea ice loss to very near the record low values observed in 2007. It remains to be seen if 2011 Arctic sea ice extent will surpass the all-time low set in September 2007; it will be close, and will depend on the weather conditions of late August and early September, which are not predictable at this time. It is already possible to sail completely around the North Pole in ice-free waters through the Northeast Passage and Northwest Passage, according to sea ice maps maintained by the UIUC Cryosphere Today website. This marks the fourth consecutive year–and the fourth time in recorded history–both of these Arctic shipping routes have melted free. Mariners have been attempting to sail these passages since 1497. This year, the Northeast Passage along the north coast of Russia melted free several weeks earlier than its previous record early opening.

Much of the reporting on the Arctic is in terms of “sea ice extent.”  That’s what the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports in its widely tracked daily update.  As the NSIDC explains in its FAQ:

A simplified way to think of extent versus area is to imagine a slice of swiss cheese. Extent would be a measure of the edges of the slice of cheese and all of the space inside it. Area would be the measure of where there is cheese only, not including the holes….

The most common threshold (and the one NSIDC uses) is 15 percent, meaning that if the data cell has greater than 15 percent ice concentration, the cell is considered ice covered; less than that and it is said to be ice free.

For a longer discussion of area vs. extent, see here.

Right now, there is a record divergence between area and extent, as Neven reports in his must-read Arctic Sea Ice Blog.  “When the pack gets compacted area and extent will come closer together. But in the melting season the gap gets greater. This is because ice is melting, gets spread out and melt ponds start to form.”

Here are two plots from the International Arctic Research Center in corporation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

As you can see, 2011 has matched 2007 in area, but lags noticeably in extent.

Neven writes:

I don’t think this is just the ice pack spreading a lot. I think that in a significant part of the Arctic – the Pacific side to be exact (the Beaufort, Chukchi and East Siberian Seas) – the ice is, to quote Professor Peter Wadhams from this BBC interview a few years back, “just melt[ing] away quite suddenly”. Or to link back to the title of the last SIE update: ‘flash melting.’ And it’s showing up in area numbers first.

If so, both area and extent will continue to plummet in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned.

 

Below are old comments from the previous Facebook commenting system:

• Scott Callaway

It is clear what they are doing, the deniers, the Fox meteorologists, the Koch’s, the paid “scientists”, the oil companies, the allied politicians. They know exactly what is happening. The Arctic Ice is being lost for good. They delay action until it is gone. They get the resources in the Arctic. Simple as that. What do they say when the ice is finally gone? They say , “Well, we guess you were right. Now get out of the way as we extract the wealth from the sea. It will be just like the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of Guinea.” Global weather will be changed. The polar bear may well be gone. The web of life will be changed forever. Greed will have its way.

5 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 12:35am

Timothy Chase · St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM

What happens to the Arctic itself is important, but the implications I am more worried about are the subarctic permafrost,the shallow-water, continental shelf methane hydrates and the possibility of our triggering hyperthermals similar to what we seen in the early Eocene, then the glaciers of Greenland and with the rising water levels from that, the ice shelves of the West Antarctic Peninsula that are anchored well below sea level. However, when it comes to global warming, what concerns me most is drought, the destruction of the base of the ocean food chain due to acidification, and famine. What we do in the next few decades may very well have implications for humanity for tens of thousands of years.

4 · Like · Reply · August 15 at 2:12am

John McCormick · Top Commenter

Scott, your comment is not a scenario. It is our and our childrens epitaph.

3 · Like · Reply · August 15 at 9:19am

Rakesh Malik · Top Commenter · Photographer/Owner at White Crane Photography

Sadly, I think you got it in one.

1 · Like · Reply · August 15 at 5:29pm

View 1 more

Peter S. Mizla · Top Commenter · Vernon, Connecticut

It is going to be interesting- the NSIDC has not updated since the 10th- and their are regions ‘grayed out’. If extent beats 2007- it should be interesting to see the media coverage. Volume continues to evaporate, so there will be less ice to melt next year.

2020 now seems possible for most of the ice to be gone.

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 14 at 9:15pm

Joseph Romm · Top Commenter · Center for American Progress

That’s my bet.

3 · Like · Reply · August 14 at 10:35pm

Dan Miller · Managing director at RODA GROUP

From a solar radiation reflection perspective, area is the one that counts, not extent.

2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 14 at 10:52pm

Robert Fanney · Top Commenter · Flagler College

Area is currently 4th lowest on record with one month of melt in the outing.

Like · Reply · August 17 at 9:53pm

Prokaryotes – · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)

Recent surface temperature trends in the interior of East Antarctica from borehole firn temperature measurements and geophysical inverse methods.

We use measured firn temperatures down to depths of 80 to 90 m at four locations in the interior of Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica to derive surface temperature histories spanning the past few decades using two different inverse methods. We find that the mean surface temperatures near the ice divide (the highest-elevation ridge of East Antarctic Ice Sheet) have increased approximately 1 to 1.5 K within the past ∼50 years.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL048086.shtml

1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 6:40am

Jai John Mitchell · Willits, California

Ice thickness declines correlate with heat content anomaly at 0-50Meters (laptev sea basin). http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/46/arcticoceanheatcontenta.png/sr=1

Like · Reply · Subscribe · Monday at 3:01pm

Robert Fanney · Top Commenter · Flagler College

Take down the sea ice and Greenland becomes very vulnerable. Simply and, in a very real sense, this is playing with fire.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 17 at 9:52pm

Timothy Chase · St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM

I would say a record recorded volume minimum is a given. Area? Just looking at the graph I might give it fifty-fifty, but given Neven’s analysis I would put the odds somewhat higher. Extent? We’ll see, but at the moment it looks like this year will split the difference between first (2007) and what is currently second (2008) place.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 1:42am

Chuck Hare · Dog walker – Chief Cook and bottle washer – handyman at The Other Dog Walker

For a long time now ice has been melting in the Arctic… My question is.. What oil company will petition to drill there too, adding insult to injury..

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 16 at 2:07pm

kett82 (signed in using Yahoo)

Regardless, if the decrease in extent is greater than 2007, it is way outside the mean. I, for one, believe that if Arctic Sea Ice is gone by 2020 or whatever, 2050, our world will be utterly different in a fundamental way.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 10:18am

Patrick Linsley · Top Commenter · Plebian at W. W. Grainger

‘Here are two plots from the International Arctic Research Center in corporation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).’ Is it supposed to be cooperation instead?

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 14 at 8:43pm

• me (signed in using Yahoo)

Heh, I’m sure it is. Somebody’s using speech recognition software :-)

1 · Like · Reply · August 14 at 9:37pm

Joseph Romm · Top Commenter · Center for American Progress

It’s what the website says: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/index.htm

1 · Like · Reply · August 14 at 9:52pm

Patrick Linsley · Top Commenter · Plebian at W. W. Grainger

Ah got it.

Like · Reply · August 14 at 10:19pm

Prokaryotes – · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)

Multi-decadal warming and shoaling of Antarctic Intermediate Water.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00021.1

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 6:38am

Prokaryotes – · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)

How does the melting influence ocean currents and local weather?

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 6:45am

Rakesh Malik · Top Commenter · Photographer/Owner at White Crane Photography

That’s an interesting question. There was a story in Discovery (IIRC) some years ago, that showed that a likely outcome was to disrupt the Oceanic Conveyer Belt, if enough cold, fresh water covered it over. Submerging it would lead to some major disasters in fairly short order, because of the amount of heat that it carries to places like England and Scandinavia.

We’ve learned a lot since then; I don’t know what the current status of that model is. I’m hoping someone here does, because I’d like to know also.

Like · Reply · August 15 at 5:37pm

John McCormick · Top Commenter

Afraid, not on CP!

Like · Reply · August 15 at 8:02pm