According to US Navy PIPS2 data, the area of ice greater than 2.5 metres thick has more than doubled since the same date in 2008.
Cryosat 2 recently confirmed the accuracy of PIPS2.
http://realclimatescience.com/2011/06/21/cryosat-agrees-with-pips/
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It’ll be interesting to see if the blobs of thicker stuff near the Alaskan/Russian side will act as a buffer against or even prevent complete melt in that region. If they do, we might see significantly higher extents than last year. If they don’t, then the valuable thick ice will be lost in vain.
-Scott
A much better question is: are those ‘blobs of thicker stuff’ real? What do you think, Steven?
Here’s the last available ice thickness map (for May 23rd) before PIPS went offline.
Yes. Ice piles up under compression.
So you believe those red blobs are real?
I don’t think compression in the middle of the pack can cause ice to pile up, to be honest. Not to 5 meters. On the Siberian coast, if the Beaufort Gyre keeps rotating for more than 7-10 days (like it has now), maybe. And of course North of Greenland and Ellesmere Island. But in the middle of the ice pack? I don’t think so.
It most certainly can. Look what happened in 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeBatHtMtYY&feature=player_embedded
Thanks for that. That was interesting.
I still think it’s an artefact (PIPS is a model after all). The ice in the Beaufort region was about 2.5 meters before it started piling up to 5 meters into a huge blob. That means that there was an area twice the size of the red blob that doubled over to form 5 meter thick ice. Just eyeballing it seems possible, but it wasn’t all compaction back then. There was a considerable amount of melting going on as well (take for instance the high SSTs at the time).
But okay, let’s say it isn’t an artefact and it is possible for ice to be compressed to a thickness of 5 meters (even if there’s no shore to push up against). The thing is: that huge red blob appears towards the very end of the melting season. We’re first of half July now. July 2007 also had a pretty big Beaufort Gyre if I’m not mistaken. And ice was probably thicker at the start of the melting season then it was at the start of this one.
Ice ridges are known to pile up to a depth of 10 metres or more under compression. It happens all the time.
OK, you could be right. We’ll see how this one develops. The BG is going to turn at least a couple of days more. The ratio between area and extent is showing that there is some compression going on.
BTW, do you have a link or something for that last assertion? Just so I can learn.
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam
*NEW!** – Webcam video of an ice shove that occurred on Feb. 17-18, 2011* (one image every 5 minutes): .mov .mp4 .wmv. This event resulted in 8m high piles of ice on the beach in some areas close to Barrow.
1. On the beach.
2. 8 meters is already 2 meters less than 10 meters. But at least you didn’t say 15 meters.
BTW, did you write as much about Barrow this year as you did last year?
You can use google too
Ridges are small “mountain ranges” that form on top of the ice; keels are the corresponding features on the underside of the ice. The total thickness of the ridges and keels can be several meters (in some cases, 20 meters, or 60 feet, thick), and the surface ridges can easily be 2 meters (6 feet) or higher. Ridges create significant obstacles to anyone trying to traverse the ice.
http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/features.html
Thanks, that was helpful.
Steven, did you see the latest NRL announcement on the PIPS website?
Is there some reason why I should care about that small hole near the pole?
The “small” hole at the pole, or at least the hole and the unrealistically thin area around it, does not appear on the MODIS satellite imagery, and is about as big as the thick-ice areas you wrote about. If the missing ice at the pole is an artifact, does that not imply that the thick-ice spots might also be an artifact?
The PIPS communication provides no reason to support that idea.
Neven, weren’t you just making the same comments on http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/07/arctic-sea-ice-update-2300-manhattans.html ?
Nice to see you expanding your horizons.