Update on the Arctic focusing on Greenland - 6 May, 2019

An Arctic ice update – 6 May, 2019

Dave (Nostrodoomus) has done an excellent report on the Arctic, including revealing the source of high sulphur dioxide readings coming from a lake near Norilsk in northern Russia (the most polluted city in the world)

Here is the record low sea ice extent.

One can see that already the sea ice concentration is much lower

Here are the extremely warm conditions around Greenland

Here are the astronomical temperature anomalies for the area.

https://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation/

"Warmth and yet more warmth is coming into Baffin Bay and beyond from now. Attached is a map of the daily max temps on 8th May, which looks like persisting.

"I am not sure if I have seen such a map so early in the season that looks like being so persistent."

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2591.650.html

There continues to be high temperatures off the coast of Svalbard that are going nowhere

Thanks to Dave I have discovered a new site for sea surface temperatures which seem to be hovering around or just below 0 deg C

http://ocean.dmi.dk/satellite/index.uk.php

It is May, but areas on the coast are starting to melt.

This is how it looked at the same time last year

It is opening up early in southern Greenland

And this is how it looked last year

It was very sad to find that it is now impossible to get onto the US Navy website. This was my best source for sea ice thickness. Even before, it came with lots of dire warnings. My initial guess is that they have closed this off for public access.

On another note this representation of the increase in CO2 levels says a lot.

A comparison of 2019 and 2016 using uni-hamburg amsr2-uhh apr1-may2.

Here is Margo's report from yesterday

From Cameron Forge, via Facebook

Sooner than expected…

Announcing the official start to Greenland's melt season - almost a full month earlier than average. 

Today DMI scientists announced the start of the Greenland melt season, the second earliest in a record that stretches back to 1980. “The start of the melt season occurs on the first of three consecutive days where more than 5% of the ice sheet has melt at the surface.” said scientist Peter Langen. “We use a pretty strict definition as we want to make sure it is a consistent start to melting and not just a blip due to unseasonal weather”. This year’s start of 30th April is second only to 2016, when a very unusual weather pattern caused a very early start to the melt season in mid-April.

Full story on the Polar Portal.

http://polarportal.dk/en/news/news/greenland-melt-season-officially-starts-almost-a-month-early/?fbclid=IwAR1TIsni_-UUGERHTTGT0YX86BiYifTRIt_ZL34-yU_Y8inRoUsMwl6uiPc