Is the ice unusually fragmented?

I've been rather busy with a new piece of kit, a PicoScope 2206A, so haven't been commenting much on sea ice elsewhere. But this post is once again prompted by claims I read that the Arctic Ocean's ice pack is unusually fragmented. Is it really? Is comparing one year against another through gaps in clouds a satisfactory way of determining how fragmented the pack is?

I think not.

PIOMAS Volume Loss over July

The interesting forecast addressed in my last post involving two cyclones, one being the remnants of tropical storm Molave, hasn't panned out. Such is the risk of using forecasts so far ahead. However the weather still will play a large role in the setting of the September, and it was such a remarkable forecast it was worthy of comment.

Anyway, this is a quick post to update the sea ice volume loss over July and the volume at the end of July using PIOMAS daily volume data. I have now updated all of the regional PIOMAS data available here to the most recent data available.

I also digress at the end to a outlook for the minimum September extent.

Two Cylones that might be significant

Weather forecasts show two possibly important cyclonic weather systems.

PIOMAS July 2015

PIOMAS gridded data is out, well partially.As I type the gice data and daily data hasn't been updated, but I'll proceed with what heff (grid box effective thickness) shows.

July Status: How low can it go?

Rather then do a proper run down of July conditions I have decided to mostly look forward, although in doing so I cover July. In my previous post on sea ice conditions I covered up to mid July, and essentially not much has changed, the Arctic Dipole has dominated through July and sets the scene for August.

Before I begin, apologies for the stupid 'Cookies' message, this is a result of European Union legislation.

A Correction

In mid June I posted a blog post asking about whether we were facing a crash this year. This was based on the US Navy's ACNFS Model, which I have previously called HYCOM. Shortly after the post the model version I had used was put behind a password wall, the US Navy had realised that it wasn't signed off for public release.

Now it seems there is a problem with ACNFS, as found out by Peter Ellis at the Sea Ice Forum. Basically the massive melt ACNFS showed this summer was due to a glitch in the model. These things happen, the only people who don't make mistakes are those who never try anything, and the more complex one's endeavour the more likely mistakes are.

So my question in mid June about us facing a crash this year was based on flawed data.

This doesn't affect any of my recent blog posts because the password walling of ACNFS made me suspect something was up, on that I was wrong in the end, it was walled for another reason. But after the PIOMAS data I suspected something was off with ACNFS, by my June Status post I used ACNFS but came to the conclusion there would not be a crash this year.

I will be using ACNFS for ice movement, but for other metrics will probably rest use of it for the remainder of the summer season, perhaps longer, to give them time to get things sorted.

Mid Summer 2015 Status

Taking the Arctic Ocean summer season as June to the sea ice minimum, around now is the middle of the summer. In this post I look at the state of the ice mid summer, and offer a guess of what the minimum will be.