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That's great news! Does anyone know how long it usually stays at or close to the shore around Barrow and Prudhoe Bay?
There are two distinctly different conditions that might be interesting as answers to your question (actually I guess three!).
Sea ice is one thing, and shore ice is another thing. Sea ice also is divided between "new ice" and "multiyear ice". Years ago when the icepack receded only 30 to 100 miles from Barrow in the summer we saw a lot of multi-year ice. Now, with the icepack moving 2-300 miles away in the summer, that basically no longer happens, and for the past couple of years there has been virtually nothing but new ice. New ice is of course not as thick and not as strong as multi-year ice.
The icepack, for Barrow, is essentially gone by early June, but shore ice still blocks access to the ocean.
Shore ice is virtually all new ice, but commonly right off shore from Barrow the shore ice interacts (due to wind and currents) a great deal with sea ice. The lack of multi-year ice significantly affects that interaction.
Shore ice begins to form usually in November, and it is almost always still in place on the 4th of July too. However, pictures of claiming to show some significance between any two years are absolutely useless. (There has been an example passing around for a couple of years, one image with lots of solid ice and one with none.) A few years ago the shore ice all blew away in early March! That was a bit frightening, but it reformed by the end of the month and was still quite good in April and May (when people here depend on it being strong enough to support pulling bowhead whales out for processing).
Another change that has become distinct within the past 3-5 years or so is that we now have virtually ice free waters in August and September. Up until a decade ago, due both to the near proximity of the icepack and the large amount of multiyear ice, there would be huge icefloes drifting around all summer. Shifts in the winds used to mean potentially having an ice free ocean offshore turn into an ice clogged ocean within a very short time (2-3 hours).
There are two distinctly different conditions that might be interesting as answers to your question (actually I guess three!).
Sea ice is one thing, and shore ice is another thing. Sea ice also is divided between "new ice" and "multiyear ice". Years ago when the icepack receded only 30 to 100 miles from Barrow in the summer we saw a lot of multi-year ice. Now, with the icepack moving 2-300 miles away in the summer, that basically no longer happens, and for the past couple of years there has been virtually nothing but new ice. New ice is of course not as thick and not as strong as multi-year ice.
The icepack, for Barrow, is essentially gone by early June, but shore ice still blocks access to the ocean.
Shore ice is virtually all new ice, but commonly right off shore from Barrow the shore ice interacts (due to wind and currents) a great deal with sea ice. The lack of multi-year ice significantly affects that interaction.
Shore ice begins to form usually in November, and it is almost always still in place on the 4th of July too. However, pictures of claiming to show some significance between any two years are absolutely useless. (There has been an example passing around for a couple of years, one image with lots of solid ice and one with none.) A few years ago the shore ice all blew away in early March! That was a bit frightening, but it reformed by the end of the month and was still quite good in April and May (when people here depend on it being strong enough to support pulling bowhead whales out for processing).
Another change that has become distinct within the past 3-5 years or so is that we now have virtually ice free waters in August and September. Up until a decade ago, due both to the near proximity of the icepack and the large amount of multiyear ice, there would be huge icefloes drifting around all summer. Shifts in the winds used to mean potentially having an ice free ocean offshore turn into an ice clogged ocean within a very short time (2-3 hours).
That's interesting. Its strange because right when I was reading this, they had a segment on the Weather Channel about this exact same thing. Big news I suppose. Hopefully this means that the ice wont pull back so far this year.
Up until a decade ago, due both to the near proximity of the icepack and the large amount of multiyear ice, there would be huge icefloes drifting around all summer. Shifts in the winds used to mean potentially having an ice free ocean offshore turn into an ice clogged ocean within a very short time (2-3 hours).
That's roughly about the time the annual anomaly chart really took a dive into negative territory. And it hasn't been back above the positive line since then.
That's interesting. Its strange because right when I was reading this, they had a segment on the Weather Channel about this exact same thing. Big news I suppose. Hopefully this means that the ice wont pull back so far this year.
Don't bet on that!
It's been progressing steadily for at least the past three decades. There is clearly a long term progression, but there are other shorter term cycles that are active too. What happened in the past decade was simply that multiple shorter term cycles just happened to hit their minimums at the same time. Now that they are having less effect the ice is closer to the average, and should occasionally go above the average for short periods of time too.
But significant change has occurred. The loss of massive amounts of multiyear ice will mean that even with otherwise similar conditions the icepack will still recede farther than it did a few years ago. That is also affected by the significantly lower total mass of ice, which is now much less than it used to be.
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