Thursday 6 July 2017

The Arctic melt season - 07/05/2017


It’s raining in the Arctic as an Atmospheric River enters Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait

Here is some information as an update. Many thanks to Sam Carana and Torstein Viddal

Atmospheric River enters Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait.

Winds as high as 58 km/h (36 mph) at green circle at surface level, 82 km/h (51 mph) at 850 mb (hPa), on July 6, 2017, 1500 UTC.


Created by Sam Carana for Arctic-News.blogspot.com with nullschool.net images.

No automatic alt text available.

No automatic alt text available.

It's raining over the Arctic Ocean.


Surface temperature of the air is 8.1°C (46.5°F) where an atmospheric river is entering the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait (green circle).

No automatic alt text available.


No automatic alt text available.


Daily volume: 9,176 km³ (3rd lowest for the date) Δ –387/day
–2946/week, –9170/month, +1645/year, –2139/5year (–19%)

Daily extent: 8,741,930 km² (3rd lowest for the date) Δ –80k/day
–668k/week, –2281k/month, +35k/year, –4k/5year (–0%)
No automatic alt text available.

2017 volume maximum 22,255 km³ on May 12th (*lowest*)
2017 volume minimum¹ 9,176 km³ on July 3rd
2017 extent maximum 13,878,287 km² on March 6th (*lowest*)
2017 extent minimum¹ 8,741,930 km² on July 3rd
¹Preliminary max/min
Source: JAXA / Wipneus for July 3rd 2017.


No automatic alt text available.


Western end of the North West Passage

arctic.io/explorer/W-W/2017-07-05;2016-07-05/8-N74.27342-W124.54436 ]


Image may contain: text

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/.../topic,1834.msg119468... ]

Image may contain: text


No automatic alt text available.
The scariest part of this map plot — showing where 2012 was thicker (blue) and thinner (red) on June 30 — is that it feels like the Planet's been focusing its efforts on just the right parts, for a total meltdown.

If you're unfamiliar with the Arctic, the problem here is that almost all of the 'red' (extra) ice on the right and lower side of the map sits in areas that are literally going south, because of wind and ocean currents, and/or it swims in waters that cannot sustain ice throughout the season.

Being thinner (blue) on the Pacific side, and in the Central Arctic Basin, of course also doesn't help.

1 comment:

  1. And when most of the ice is gone...and the shallow waters really start to warm up...and all that methane down there continues to bubble up... well, interesting times, indeed...

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.