Warm winds slow autumn ice growth

[phantom power]

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Conditions in context

In the fall, cold conditions and polar darkness return to the Arctic. As is typical for this time of year, ice growth was brisk in October, growing at an average 96,000 square kilometers per day (37,000 square miles per day).

However, the growth rate slowed for a time in early October, coinciding with strong winds from the south over central Siberia. The winds helped prevent ice from forming along the Siberian coast. At the end of the month, extensive areas of open water regions were still present in the northernmost North Atlantic, and north of Alaska. The ice edge was north of both Svalbard and Franz Josef Land.

A warm October

For most of the month, a high-pressure system sat over the Beaufort Sea, while unusually low pressure dominated the Barents Sea. In accord with Buys Ballot's Law, the area between the two pressure centers saw strong, warm winds blowing from the south. This wind pattern, in conjunction with extensive open water, led to a mean monthly temperature as high as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in the region between the high and low pressure anomalies (October air temperature map).

[hatrack]

1. Fascinating - the ice edge N of both Svalbard and FJL that late in the year . .

Potentially not just the wind patterns, but the relative vulnerability of one-year pack ice?

[phantom power]

2. Disappearing multi-year ice is the Big Story, almost any way you slice it

It's why the impending loss of the arctic ice cap will appear so sudden.

[hatrack]

3. I posted a story from Canada about the essential disappearance of multi-year ice . . .

What stuck in my mind was the testimony that research ships were going through what appeared to be solid pack ice at 13-14 knots.

The pack was rotten, shot through with holes.

[phantom power]

4. I experience a pervasive sense of dread...

that our whole biosphere is actually like that. One day it will just unravel before our eyes.