Yup Dr M. , sure is good it gets cold when the sun goes down......

PK2 wrote:

I didn't say it was unusual just nice to look at.  It's probably later than usual (I haven't checked) I just thought the link belonged in here rather than elsewhere.

doctormog wrote:

Nice to look at indeed, FWIW I'd have put the link here

Gray-Wolf wrote:

It's already there

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

NSIDC view of October is now out.

This is obviuosly why though, not a great mystery...

"At the end of October, ice growth slowed, and at the end of the month extensive open water areas remained in the Beaufort, Chukchi, Kara and Barents seas. This region had the warmest ocean surface temperatures at the end of the melt season."

Still as GW said, at least the heat can radiate to the atmosphere allowing the seas to cool.

As can be clearly seen if you look, the Worlds Oceans are "Cooling" as we go into the negative cycles, the Arctic is one of the few places that had positive anomalies, but even here it has cooled down.

UNISYS Current Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Plot - click to enlarge

It's confirmation that the Arctic is changing.  That heat wouldn't have been there a decade or more ago and it means that the annual cycle is altering because that heat has to dissipate and this will slow the ice rebuild.  There is a painful logical progression at work, where more open water leads to more heat which leads to later re-freezing which leads to thinner ice which in turn is going to melt quicker in the spring/summer, in turn leading to more heat in the system - and so on...

As for ocean temperatures, if you isolate the La Nina pattern in the Pacific the rest of the globe looks neutral to slightly above normal still - bearing in mind that the colour coding can be slightly misleading (pale blue being areas with either no anomaly or a slightly positive one).

And with the jetstream south in important places like the North Atlantic, more continentality could become the norm. Yes, it's weather, but, before AGW hit the scene, increased continentality has happened before - the LIA for instance.

Hi

I accept that the Arctic is a small(ish) area but it is known to be an important driver of weather and therefore by general consensus it 'punches above its weight' in terms of impact.

This is the Arctic Ice discussion and I was suggesting nothing more than the impact of AGW on the prospects for the Arctic.  I am not promoting any idea that isn't already in the mainstream scientific literature, am I?

Your point about the behaviour of the jet and impacts on local weather are clearly correct.  Whether this has any bearing on the Arctic or the impacts of AGW are other questions.  As you know the recent research suggested a link between a warming Arctic and increased incursions of cold air to mid-latitudes.

The climate models predict greater warming in the Arctic and high latitudes and this is what we are seeing.  Co-incidence or support for the existence of AGW?  That is the debate, is it not?  If it is the latter then the Arctic is the 'canary in the cage' and we ought to be taking note.

Let us also not forget that the changes we are now witnessing are not powerful enough (yet) to completely swamp other 'signals' and we are being constantly reminded exactly where we are in a number of these cycles over the past couple of years (and what to expect from these cycles?).

Obviously if we are constantly 'put on hold' about seeing the impacts, and the global cooldown, from this conbination of cycles then maybe we have been seeing them the past few years (or more?) and it is just that their impacts are now being muted by the background warming?

Should we see the PDO flip positive in the next 5 years (and end the current negative phase) I fear a lot of folk would be left no option than to accept that the Arctic is now impacting a larger sphere than even Mr Overland is willing to concede to?

I’m more interested in the debate for next season taking in consideration the actual sea ice trend then defending points of view favour or against GW.

There is a lack os couverage in the atlantic side, but dispite of that is very interesting that tongue between Greenland and Iceland

I rather prefere this one shows a good anomaly in this case -tive arround USA East Coast and North sea, helping a possible rising pressure above 60º paralel, specially in Eastern Canada in the next few weeks

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.11.1.2010.gif 

I don't think there is any need to defend or attack - the facts (extent and trends) speak for themselves.

Yes, that tongue of ice looks interesting.  I checked on Cryosphere Today and it shows there as an area of very low concentration or no ice at all (between 0 and 20% cover).

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/NEWIMAGES/arctic.seaice.color.000.png

Incidentally, we saw another large increase yesterday: now 8,403,594 sq km.  That still puts 2010 as second lowest since 2002.

Hi,

just adding some comparing data is not a scintific thing to do but opens the debate, because they are cooler then same date as 2008, specially the Western side.

August
http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20100826.pdf

http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20080825.pdf

September

http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20080925.pdf

http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20100927.pdf

October
http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20101025.pdf

http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20081027.pdf

November
http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20101101.pdf

http://www.smhi.se/oceanografi/istjanst/produkter/arkiv/sstchart/sstchart_20081103.pdf

It's a shame we don't see the depths as well? I'm not happy with the Data our Cetacean pals have been giving around the Baffin area, kinda confirms what we all feared (continued temp rises above and beyond IPCC W.C.S. with mixing out of the halocline as well).

I'm sure the Arctic ocean transits we sat and watched by the Healy this summer will provide a similar picture within the basin itself.

Lest we treat the ocean surface temps the same way some of us treat 'ice extent' eh?

The ice extent growth continued yesterday, albeit slightly slower after the recent spurt.

Yesterday's value was 8,672,500, putting it very close to 2007 (8,672,813) and fractionally above last year (8,667,656).

As a reminder the 1979-2000 average for early November is 10.5m

Wake me up in March. 

Is that a promise? 

I'm just tracking how the growth is proceeding. Nothing untoward so far, other than the starting point.

I think the ice thickness is deeper and larger, because has more Ice >1 year that could help to make a more solide concentracion when compared to 2005, the ice was thiner. the NE of canada is below average.

http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/analysis/nh/nh.20101107.gif

http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/analysis/nh/nh.20051107.gif

Looking at the longer-term trend, this site shows the ice loss between the period 1958-1976 and the 1990s:

http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/thickcli.htm

The rate of loss varies quite widely, but is very clearly all losses.

I think we also need to get a handle on the 'modern' 12month ice loss through both Fram and Nares (and Bering if the wind/temps are favourable to it).

The Fram losses are of our most 'valuable' ice (the oldest in the basin) and are replaced by F.Y. ice. Not a good swap!

Yes, quite a lot of this year's imagery seems to indicate a thicker ice pack compared with recent years.

Is there a rule that GW has to include the word "Fram" in every post?

That's almost deframatory.....

Well that was Strait to the point.......

(and for good measure....

http://www.woksat.info/etcsk08/sk08-1236-i-sv.html

note the milky swirls as the old ice melts out, also note the lozenge patterns we see around Nares surfacing here....I wonder where (and when) this ice came from???)

 http://www.woksat.info/etcsk08/sk08-1416-a-apt-w.html

Any chance that you could make that image a little smaller as it is a bit big and is messing up the Framing on my page?

Edit: That was quick LOL

Quick update - yesterday's value was 8,987,031 sq km.

That puts us at the second lowest after 2009 (by 100k) and about 2m sq km below the 1979-2000 norm for this stage in the re-freeze.

We are still tracking towards the bottom end of the 21st century range of values.

Really....2 million sq km, looks like half of that to me......

Cryosphere Today - this date compared with 2007 - click to enlarge (thanks to Ric Werme)