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Now that the Arctic sea ice concentration on the Bering Sea side is very irregular, it might be interesting to see the actual extent combined with latest radar image and analyze which areas are close to the 15% threshold.

My first attempt using Gimp is quite successful, however future versions will have a better styling. Both pics are from yesterday – dated 2010-08-23. The extent grapic is from NSIDC and the radar image from the danish DMI.

It is not that easy to read radar images, because of cloud artefacts and reflections. So, concentrate first on identifying structures, e. g. stress lines. Anyway, it does not harm to check against the MODIS images. To provide a starting point, the red letters have the following meanings:

M: multi year ice, very compacted. (>90%)
E: first year ice, compact. (50-70%)
B: area with floes mixed with open water. (30-50%)
D: very diffuse area. (<30%)

Ideas for improvements are welcome in the comment section!

The extent of the sea ice in the Arctic will reach its annual minimum in September. Forecasts indicate that it will not be as low as in 2007, the year of the smallest area covered by sea ice since satellites started recording such data.

Nevertheless, sea ice physicists at the Alfred Wegener Institute are concerned about the long-term equilibrium in the Arctic Ocean. They have indications that the mass of sea ice is dwindling because its thickness is declining.

To substantiate this, they are currently measuring the ice thickness north and east of Greenland using the research aircraft Polar 5. The objective of the roughly one-week campaign is to determine the export of sea ice from the Arctic. Around a third to half of the freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean takes place in this way – a major drive factor in the global ocean current system.

Continue: awi.de

Since the beginning of August there have been less clouds in the Arctic due to a more high pressure systems. Stay tuned.

An ice island weighing many millions of tonnes break off the northern hemisphere’s largest glacier yesterday. Most of the glaciers calving into the warming Arctic Sea are on the decline.

Update: According to the University of Delaware the new iceberg measures about four times the size of Manhattan and is up to 180 meters thick.

A federal judge has clarified a decision that stopped companies from developing oil and gas wells off Alaska’s coast, saying it shouldn’t prevent approved scientific work such as seismic surveying.
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The shipwreck of HMS Investigator was located by Parks Canada archaeologists in the first moments of the search. Upon the arrival of the project team, ice had been pushed back inside Mercy Bay and the side-scan search had to be delayed.
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I. G. M. Wientjes and J. Oerlemans just published a paper giving some insight why the melt zone is that dark.
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Stormy, cloudy, and relatively cool weather persisted through the month, which helped slow the rate of ice loss. The daily rate of decline for July was 77,000 square kilometers (29,700 square miles) per day, close to the 1979 to 2000 average of 84,400 square kilometers (32,600 square miles).
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